


Hack me if you can

by Grayvys



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Sex, Art, Begging, Bottoming from the Top, Criminal AU, Cuddles, Detective AU, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Irony, M/M, Praise Kink, also some robbery, bottoming from the bottom, buckwild, detective karkat and criminal haxxor dirk, good boys, hacking shenanigans, idk - Freeform, it's gonna be wild trust, light pain kink, little bit dave/john, little bit rose/kanaya, little bit roxy/nepeta, they're both switches in role but dirks likes it in the booty
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-02-07
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-03-15 08:59:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 39,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13609989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Grayvys/pseuds/Grayvys
Summary: Your name is Detective Karkat Vantas and you're transferred to the White Collar Crimes division in Houston Texas where you find many old friends who are apparently now your new colleagues. They inform you of a douchefuck Hacker called Di-Stri, who works alongside another hacker that goes by Rox on the Rocks. They seem like assholes and you really don't want anything to do with them.Your name is Dirk Strider and the new detective on your case is hot as fuck.(specific porn chapters are in notes)





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The porn chapters won't necessarily have anything plot relevant so feel free to skip them if it's not your thing, or skip right to them if it is.
> 
> Porn chapters are:  
> Chapter 7  
> Chapter 12

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/138449925@N02/28365129989/in/dateposted-public/)

Your name is Karkat Vantas, sorry, Detective Karkat Vantas and you’ve just been transferred into the White Collar Crimes division in Houston Texas and are quite frankly sick of bullshit movers losing half your shit. Today is your first day at the new office but right now, you’re sitting on the floor of your empty tiny-ass “bedroom” (which could also be called a living room, dining room, and your kitchen too), wallowing in self-pity as all you have in this 300 square foot apartment is a mattress, a box of clothes, and some tv dinners. It’s claustrophobic as fuck like seriously, you barely get paid jack shit and the only reason you’re here is because you were desperate for a place to live that didn’t involve cats everywhere.

Your old friend Nepeta Leijon, sorry, Detective Nepeta Leijon works at the station you have been recently assigned to, and offered for you to stay at her place. You don’t think even she knows how many cats she has, there’s just, so fucking many. There’s also Sergeant Equius Zahhak, but you don’t have enough towels for yourself let alone for that hulking specimen of man-meat. 

You sigh loudly and fucking proudly cause goddam you can’t even call this apartment a waste of space because, well, what space. You stand up, stretch to get some kinks in your back out, brush off your tie and straighten it best you can because it’s not like you have a fucking goddamn mirror and fuck this you’re out. You stride through the door and abscond the fuck away from here, heading off towards the station and leaving a little early since you’re new to the city and by fuck you’re not gonna be late on your first day just for some jackasses to taunt you about it for the rest of your fucking days; most officers are just asshole middle schoolers but now they can kill themselves drinking.

You light up a cigarette as you make your way down the street and refuse to acknowledge the dumbass irony of it. 

One saving grace about your new apartment is that it’s just down the street from the station, so only a short walk later and your standing outside of it. The sun shines brightly around you, unreasonably and positively so, seems like passersby have a spring in their step because of it. You’d punch the sun if you could.

You snub your cigarette in a nearby ash tray because you’re a smoker, not a fucking delinquent stepping on their cigarette butts all over the damn place. Making your way inside, you follow signs in the elevator towards White Collar Crimes and a dumb and pointless few minutes of movement later you arrive where you need to be. You head into the office and before you can step foot into the bullpen you’re being hugged.

“Karkitty! You’re here!”

“Yes I am now can you please fucking get off me.”

Nepeta laughs and does as you ask, grinning at you.

“How are you, are you all moved in?”

“I’m just fine, the world seems to be crumbling around me like some kid found its way to the cookie jar and is getting its grubby hands all over my shit effectively crumbling it, my shit being the cookie and half of which was lost during the move.”

“Oh no! Do you need me to help you with anything? Need any furniture?” 

“Actually, if you could help me with some groceries that’d be fucking nifty. Don’t know where anything is.”

“Of course! How about after work tonight?”

“Yeah that sounds good. Uh, thanks.”

She giggles at you.

“Come on, let me show you around. You’re a bit early so Equius isn’t in yet.”

You nod and let her lead you along as she points out the different desks and who’s is who’s as well as the side office for the chief (who happens to be another friend Chief Kanaya Maryam), where the breakroom is, the cells, interrogation room, all the rooms, all the goddam rooms so big and spacious and god yes. You suspect you might be spending more time here than your apartment but you probably would anyway, you’re pretty aware of your reputation as a workaholic and if nothing else, the bags under your eyes say just as much. 

“Here’s your desk Karkat!” 

“There’s already-? Of course, of course there’s already paperwork and case files what fun.”

“Let me know if you have any questions, I’ll be right here. We’re going to have a meeting soon for updates on this big case we’ve been working on, you’ll want to be there.”

“Thanks.”

You sit down at the desk and get to work, skimming through the cases; it seems like someone had fun with multi-colored folders. There’s a green folder, big orange one, pink, blue, it’s like a fucking rainbow folder festival up in here. You start working on some paperwork, standard tedious stuff but stuff nonetheless, and you become absorbed in it until something casts a shadow on your desk.

“Good morning Karkat, it is nice to see you.”

You’d remember that sweet voice oh so dripping with gravitas anywhere.

“Kanaya.”

“Karkat.”

“I mean hey Kanaya, been a while huh.”

You stand up quickly and you think you’re smiling stupidly and lopsided. Her smile grows so you guess it’s ok, or what the fuck ever.

“It has, I’m glad you are here, we could use your help with a few cases we seem to be stuck on.”

“Is that the only reason you’re happy to see me? As an insipid underling to your glorious chiefly reign?”

She chuckles.

“Yes exactly. But I am glad to see you again. I must get some things ready for the meeting I’m sure Nepeta has told you about so until then.”

She nods and you nod back as she heads into her office. She was a one of a kind friend back in the day, still is but of course your ungrateful and negligent ass hasn’t been talking with her as often as you should have. You sit back down to do your paperwork, glancing over to see Nepeta chatting with Equius and yup, he’s still as sweaty as you remember. He doesn’t seem to have noticed you yet but you’ll talk with him later, right now you need to write down your shitty address 500 fucking times.

Before you know it what a surprise it’s time for the meeting. You shuffle over to the conference room and take your seat behind Nepeta and Equius, watching as others come in and sit down, you think, huh, is that Sollux? Well damn guess this is one big happy reunion. Kanaya stands at a podium with a screen drawn down and the projector on. Power-points, gotta love em.

“As many of you know, we have a new detective joining us; Karkat Vantas.”

Everyone turns to you and you nod, if you say something you’re probably going to unleash a rainbow waterfall of colorful insults they’ve yet to be graced with the knowledge of because it’s buttfuck morning and you just want this meeting done with so you can get back to work.

“You can make introductions later, for now let us get to business.”

She clicks her remote and the power-point changes accordingly, showing a collage of various business logos and names. As she continues, she changes the slides to corresponding pictures and bullet points.

“We have been looking into one of the biggest international hackers for a while now, Di-Stri, working in tandem with another known felon who goes by Rox on the Rocks. For those of you who do not know, Di-Stri and his accomplices are tied to hundreds of cases of fraud, hacking into companies and wealthy people and taking their money as well as leaving viruses in their systems causing all hardware to become simply plastic. They have even robbed banks with robots, sending in a few to take out anyone in the way and take the money without ever showing their true faces. They do not kill anyone, so homicide is not involved, they only stun or knock people out. As for what the money is taken for, we do not know yet, and we also do not know what they look like. The FBI and CIA have been working with us on this investigation for a while but very few still do today as they have apparently ‘more important things’ to do. In any case, we have reason to believe that their ‘base’ for lack of a better term, is here in Houston.”

You hear a few gasps.

“So, we need people on the streets, ask anyone if they have heard or met anyone matching what we know of Di-Stri and Rox on the Rocks. That is all, thank you for your time and get to work.”

Everyone practically scatters out of the room to god knows where. This Di-Stri sounds like a dick and you want nothing to do with this shit-stain, but somehow everyone seems so excited with this new information. You get up and follow Nepeta out.

“Hey Nepeta, who’s this Di-Stri douche?”

“He is a classless hacker who cares for nothing and no one. Be wary Karkat, he is a finicky one.”

Equius answers you before Nepeta can.

“Ya sounds like a fucking douche upon a thousand douches huh.”

You think Equius almost smirks a little.

“Nice to see you, you absolute horsefuck.”

“You as well. If you will excuse me.”

He nods at you and Nepeta and heads off to probably find a towel or something.

“You should come with me Karkitty!”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Come on Karkitty, I’m going to ask a few contacts of mine, you should tag a long.”

“...Yeah ok fine, let’s go.”

Nepeta practically squeals as you get your jacket on and follow her outside.

You spend the day walking with her, mostly chatting about inane bullshit but it’s nice. She catches you up to speed on the Di-Stri case, saying they’ve had a few run ins with the guy via pesterchum of all things, and that he finds his way into the police systems all the time. Sollux tries to stop and track him but they haven’t gotten far. She shows you pictures of the robots they’ve sent to rob various places and you have to admit, they look advanced as fuck. Maybe you shouldn’t underestimate this asshole, still an asshole, but as loathe you are to admit, he seems to be a smart asshole. And this Rox on the Rocks broad, seems even smarter than he is.

Nepeta also shows you around the city, giving you a tour of the downtown area which seems pretty nice you guess. The two of you meet one or two contacts but none of them know anything so you both trudge on, talking about whatever. Di-Stri is soon put into the back of your mind, and you actually start enjoying your time hanging out with Nepeta. As overly-excited as she tends to be, you forgot she was a good friend and you sorely regret not talking to her more. You’ve been regretting a lot of shit today, you haven’t been keeping up with your old friends as much as you would have liked and damn you’re feeling it. 

The sun sets and you call Kanaya to update her on how far you’ve gotten, she thanks you for your work and tells you to have a goodnight, so you guess you’re off the hook and can head home now. Except, you really don’t want to go back there, plus Nepeta was going to take you grocery shopping so ha, take that shitty apartment. You’re noticing how tired you are by how lazy your insults are getting, but it’s fine, whatever, you’re always tired. 

Nepeta leads you to a nearby grocery store and grabs a cart for you as you stifle a yawn.

“So, where to? What food do you need? I suggest the tuna, they have really good tuna.”

“Hah, no, no way. Seafood is out. Let’s just get some vegetables and beans or fucking rice or something.”

She cheerfully nods and leads you to the corresponding sections, she’s been very kind to you today and happily showing you around, dealing with your whiny bitchy ass. You’re going to have to remember to find some way to thank her later. She takes you to the produce section and leaves the cart with you.

“I’m going to find some beans and rice and ‘whatever’ so wait right here and get what you need!”

You nod as she prances off, turning towards the wall of veggies. There’s a fuckin lot, more than what you’re used to. You didn’t realize there were this many different kinds of peppers, seriously, shit’s colorful as hell. You take a moment to glaces around, picking up what you need; zucchini here, cucumber there, broccoli, cauliflower cause there’s a sale on it so why the fuck not. You head over to the oranges and start picking out a few with what seems to be the least amount of bruising.

“Nice piece.”

You turn to the voice a little too quickly; some douchecanoe who came out the fuck of nowhere and appeared right next to you.

“Excuse you?”

He nods towards your ass. You scowl and are about to release a righteous tirade at the most unlucky fucker in the world when you realize, oh, he’s just pointing out your gun. You calm your stupid self down and turn to him.

“Oh, ya. I’m a detective so it’s cool.”

“It’s Texas, you’re cool anyway but ok.”

You scowl at him again. Stupid douchefuck, uses too much gel and smells like a middle school boys locker room. You notice his eyes are orange as fuck which is actually kind of cool but you don’t like him, so no. You turn away before you can make any more observations.

“Whatever. Excuse me while I’m shopping.”

“You’re excused. So you’re a detective, that’s got to be interesting.”

You scoff and roll your eyes, seems like he’s not leaving soon.

“It has its moments.”

He stays standing next to you much to your annoyance.

“I’m sorry.”

You turn to him and raise an eyebrow.

“Why?”

“I don’t think we got off to a good start there.”

You’re taken aback, what the fuck? Uh ok. You suddenly notice he’s got those fucking dimples that you are weak for and oh no, his jaw is damn cut. You subtly look him up and down and shit oh fuck he’s hot. It’s been a while for you and damn if this assface isn’t hot as hell. Seriously, images of you climbing him like the sexiest tree in the forest fill your think pan. You’d blush but you’re a grown ass man and you’re above such things. Your eyes trail back to see him smirking. Shit, he noticed. And there goes not blushing you fucking dumbass. 

He holds a hand out to shake.

“Name’s Dirk.”


	2. Chapter 2

Your name is Dirk Strider and you’re one hot haxxor motherfucker, the sun is beckoned at your command, and is sent off in the same manner you goddam hotshot. You lean back in your chair and stretch; having just stolen a few million from one of the many inane hollywood asshats you feel justifiably proud of yourself. You stand up and head over to the fridge for a celebratory orange soda, you don’t care what anyone else says, orange is the pinnacle of soda flavors -fact. 

“Hey Dirky, come check this out.”

Roxy summons you from across the wide expanse of what can be only be called your ‘Lair’; more space than anyone would really know what the hell to do with, low lighting from a metric ton of computer monitors that no one would reasonably even need, even for internationally renowned haxxors like yourselves but ultimately necessary if you’re going to have a badass criminal lair beneath the apartment building you’ve lived in your whole life. It’s still there, your top floor apartment. You only use it occasionally if you have the sudden and rare inexplicable need to sleep, when your bro visits, or just to chill. Otherwise, you and Roxy spend most of your time in this dope ass lair, one side mostly yours with puppets, sbahj paraphernalia, and My Little Pony posters everywhere because how the hell are you supposed to get your grind on if Rainbow Dash isn’t there to tell you to ‘hang in there’. It’s also a pseudo-workshop where you work on your various automaton inclined projects, and other bullshit that isn’t important right now.

You take a sip of Zeus’s literal godly juice as you make your way to Roxy, taking in her many posters of wizards and cats, taking care not to trip on scarves and other things laying around.

“What’s up?”

“I was checking up on our police friends and it seems like they brought in a new detective on our case.”

“Oh?”

You lean over her shoulder and take a look at her screen as she pulls up the police database, bringing up the file they have on this new person. ‘Karkat Vantas’, kind of an odd name but whatever. She scrolls through the file, passing by a bunch of empty spaces that don’t seem to be filled out yet, glossing over past cases which damn, seems like he’s solved a lot; must be good. Not that you’re worried, but it’s better to know these things before they bite you in the ass later on, and you’d prefer that to happen literally, not metaphorically. 

“Oh snap hey there’s a picture!”

She scrolls down a bit more, revealing probably the grouchiest dude you’ve ever seen. His hair going wherever it seems to damn well please, bags under his eyes and a scowl to go with it. He’s wearing a blazer and tie, but even with that you can tell dude’s solidly built underneath. Shit he actually looks, hot as fuck.

“I know you like to play with the police but I think you need to be careful of this one, he seems like he’d tear you all the new ones.”

You don’t even listen to her as you start formulating a plan to get this guy to give you his pants, like a promise ring except not. You can tell from his emerging crows feet that this dude may have the scary look down, but he has an existing sense of humor and can smile. You’re gonna make him smile.

“Oh no Dirk, no I know that look. You’re not even listening to me are you!”

You glance down at her apologetically.

“You’re gonna go for him, huh.”

“Yup.”

“Ya I figured as much. So what’s your plan this time?”

“You gonna help?”

“Well duh, cmon I’m your wingwoman I’m not gonna leave you stranded with grouchy mcgrumpface so gimme what you got.”

She reaches out and grasps at the air in front of you.

“Probably gonna head to the station and see where he goes, see if I can’t catch him alone.”

“So you’re gonna stalk him till he’s alone then you pounce?”

“Basically.”

“Then what?”

“...Steal his phone and put my contact in it while his back is turned.”

“There it is. Ok, sure sounds like a plan. I’ll follow you along in case you need help preying on your poor grouchy gazelle.”

“Thanks Rox.”

You nod at her and the two of you fist bump with the same mischievous glint in your eyes’ as you always do before executing a plan. Not the most elegant plan in this case, but you know it’ll work; it always does. 

You both take the elevator and head outside, and by now it’s sometime late afternoon; it’s been a while since you’ve seen sun. You know Roxy misses it sometimes while you’re down in the lair for days on end working, so you make sure she gets to tag along on most of your outings, also because she’s literally the best and you don’t deserve her in any way. 

You started this whole hacking thing a few years ago when you and Roxy were hanging out, drinking horny bulls, watching classic Robin Hood Men In Tights, and bitching about gentrification, the man, rich white dudes with too much ego, all the ego. It then occurred to you that, with yours and Roxy’s skills combined, you might actually be able to do something about it. And thus, you and Roxy began your modern day Robin Hooding. You take money from companies doing more harm than good, rich white dudes with, that’s right, all the egos, from various ceos, political leaders, to just in general The Rich. Taking their money putting it into some actual good use you charitable fuckers. It all goes into feeding people who need help to be fed, for the homeless, for animals, the environment, for everything really. Though, you can’t ignore a bit of the hypocrisy in which you and Roxy keep some of the money for yourselves, convincing each other that really you’re just being paid your wages for making society better as well as operating costs. 

Having millions at your disposal is pretty rad though, and you figure it’s going to good use, that use being keeping you and Roxy from being caught, also the occasional unreasonably extravagant dinners, and trips to other countries, collecting safehouses. You’re criminal masterminds, it’s a requirement.

When your bro found out about it, he was actually cool with it. Said he would give you most of his money from his films to add to the donations but would stay out of the way so as to not draw any attention to you guys. Told you to ‘keep up the good fight little bro’. He’s a cool dude.

Back to now, you and Roxy walk around the city, mostly palling around and taking the time to stretch your legs. You’re not really paying much attention to keeping an eye out for this Karkat guy, but you’re sure if you guys just hang around the general vicinity of the police station, you’ll catch a glimpse of him at some point. You’d be wearing your sick ass ironic as hell shades but you’re undercover so they won’t fly. Your pointy anime sunglasses are what separate you from superman to clark kent, shit’s a straight up real-life cliche as fuck trope and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

“So what’s the next gig, boss?”

She winks at you.

“Don’t know yet. Maybe do some small-time stuff around town in the meantime.”

“Sounds like a plan to me. Oooh hey what if we tested out one of your new robot designs?”

“Yeah that’s what I was thinking. I’ve made something that AR can control and if it gets destroyed, even though it won’t, AR will be back in the shades just fine.”

“Nice! That’s so cute you care about his well being.”

“I just don’t want to have to make a new AI.”

“Sure sure you keep telling yourself that Dirky-poo.”

She’s right though, always is; sister always knows what’s up even if she doesn’t realize it sometimes. 

“Oh hey there he is!”

She points over across the intersection at a street corner where you see Karkat as well as your good good pal Nepeta.

“They seem pretty close.”

“Right? Huh, I’m gonna have to look into this. You think they already knew each other?”

You shrug.

“Let’s follow them.”

And you do, but not for long. They head into a nearby grocery store and you make your way inside as well.

“Ok, I’ll go occupy Nepeta, you sway your hips and bat your eyelashes at grumpy.”

You nod and she sets off. Having messed with the police a bit already, you and Roxy have already built a bit of a rapport with the police as simply friendly acquaintances who live nearby. Using it to distract them when you need to or steal their phones when they aren’t looking, which you are about to do right now. You approach Karkat from behind and deftly take the phone out of his pocket, giving him your pesterchum handle and putting it back. You’d give him your number to text as well but, you have your own secret suave ways of going about it; this is going to be fun.

You start your conversation, but your shitty social skills are quickly apparent as all you do is make him angrier, so you take a step back, starting again. You notice him checking out your fine choice ass and you smirk; got ya. You hold your hand out and he shakes it.

“Name’s Dirk.”

“Are you seriously wearing biker gloves.”

“Yeah, aren’t they cool?”

“If by cool you mean incredibly douchey then yeah what the fuck.”

Your smirk persists, you like this guy already.

“Are you going to tell me your name?”

He narrows his eyes at you, so cute.

“Detective Karkat Vantas.”

“Nice to meet you Detective Karkat Vantas. You been living here long?”

“No I, actually moved in just recently.”

“Well maybe I could show you around some time.”

“I actually have that part covered, so thanks but no thanks.”

You suppress a small frown, but this wouldn’t be as fun if you didn’t have to work for it.

“Well how about drinks then sometime.”

He sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose, you get the feeling he does that a lot. He thinks about it for a moment, seemingly at war with himself until he responds.

“No, no I shouldn’t.”

You decide this conversation has run it's course as much as it's going to, and you give him some space; he’s probably overwhelmed with everything, plus he’s going to need some r&r before tomorrow; he’s gonna get too fast too furious you can already tell.

“Well then, I should get going. Till next time Karkat.”

You turn and wave, walking away and passing by the aisles before spotting Roxy, pointing your head towards the door and heading outside, waiting for her to catch up.

“So how’d it go?”

“Phone’s ready. Himself, not so much.”

You can’t hide in your cool aloofness from her, she knows you’re positively giddy to get this thing started.

“Ooohoho you’ll have to keep me updated on your developments. But for now, drinks.”

You and her make your way back to your lair and start mixing drinks, martinis and orange margaritas up in the bitch tonight. She proposes a James Bond marathon to which you answer with the only correct response: Hell Yes.


	3. Chapter 3

You wake up same as yesterday and head to work, not bothering with breakfast bullshit as you've got shit to do. Last night was a little awkward with that inconceivably massive tool Dirk, yeah he was good looking and you’d be lying if you said you weren’t interested, but you just can’t be dating right now. If that’s even what he was implying. Whatever, you’ve got work to do. You make your way to the office, still early but somehow Nepeta is always there before you.

“Karkat! Good meowrning.”

“Oh jegus you’re doing that fucking thing again.”

“Purrlease play along, it’s been a while Karkat.”

Shit she’s doing that look, you forgot about that look, you can’t deny that look.

“Fine. Good, good meowrning . . . Nyapeta.”

You have to admit, her smile really does brighten up the room.

“I’m going to be working on some paperwork but let me know if you need any help or need a partner for some catdoor adventures!”

“Was catdoor the best you could come up with?”

“Like I said, it’s been a while.”

She pouts but you know she didn’t take it too seriously as you both sit at your desks and get to work. Soon the others start filing in, both Equius and Kanaya greet you as they pass by; you think that all of you should get together sometime once you’ve settled in as much as you can in your tiny apartment. Sollux too wherever he seems to be looming about. The biggest thing weighing on your mind from the moving mishaps is that your box full of a collection you have carefully cultivated over the years of romance novels has all up and fucking disappeared. You’re going to have to start all over again; you’d cry but you’re a grown ass man, you don’t cry. Alright maybe you do and you did, shut up.

You disregard the Di-Stri case, after having come up with nothing yesterday you’re not particularly motivated to get working on that right now. Choosing some more easy cases to ease into it, you pick out a few case files of some simple gas station robberies, one at a Game Stop, and one where some fake hundreds have been popping up around town. In a few hours you solve all of them, they were simple really. Somehow these shitheads weren’t connecting the oh so brazenly obvious dots; of course it was that delinquent who was friends with that one kid who worked there. Of course it was that girls ex-girlfriend, and tracking down where the specific kind of printer need to print those kinds of hundred dollar bills was a simple search and a call to Sollux. 

You can’t help but feel a little proud of yourself after solving all those cases so quickly, fuck yeah king of the castle it’s you, pat on the back for a goddam job well done hell yes. 

Once you finish your internal gloating, after looking around to see if hopefully no one noticed, and get up and head to the breakroom; your lack of breakfast is quickly becoming apparent as your stomach practically yowls with want. You get yourself a cup of dirt water coffee, but it’s coffee so you’re not picky, and open the fridge to try and find food that’s welcome to anyone. There’s a good stock of yogurts, some string cheese, and some apples slices; the classic snacks of elementary school. You also notice jars of honey, tuna, plenty of milk, and some eggs. You smirk, those assholes never change.

You grab a container of yogurt, some plain-ass vanilla flavor but it’ll do, and grab a plastic spoon, leaning against the counter and diving in. You don’t get much of a chance to relax though, as your phone starts to buzz. It’s probably Sollux or something getting back to you on some info you asked earlier, or probably Nepeta for who knows what. You sigh and casually take your phone out, but freeze when you what what the fucking fuck it is….. Whhaatt the fucck.

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** began pestering carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** at 11:44 --

TT: So you’re the new detective on my case.  


CG: WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU.  


TT: The one you have been asking questions about all day yesterday.  


CG: NO. NO NO NO. NO NO NO NO NO NO.  


TT: Yes.  


CG: YOU HAVE TO BE FUCKING KIDDING ME. YOU’RE MESSAGING ME, A DETECTIVE, FOR WHAT THE FUCK REASON.  


CG: I HAVE TO GIVE YOU CREDIT, I THOUGHT YOUR CASE WAS GOING TO BE MORE OF A PAIN IN THE ASS TO SOLVE BUT CLEARLY YOU HAVE SOME MASOCHISTIC WISH TO BE FOUND SO THANK YOU FOR MAKING MY JOB EASIER.  


TT: I take it your friends haven’t told you about our interactions yet.  


CG: WHAT.  


TT: You should ask them.

So you do, you storm over to Nepetas desk and growl out.

“Have you guys talked to this Di-Stri dickweed?”

“Oh did he message you too? Yeah he does that sometimes, Rox too, You won’t be able to track him or anything, Sollux has tried everything but all we can do is block him. Talk to Sollux about it.”

“Are you fucking kidding me? He just, messages you guys?”

“Yup!”

“...You don’t have to be so fucking perky about it he’s a felonious asshole.”

“Relax Karkitty, just talk to Sollux, he’ll get them blocked for you.”

You grunt and go back to the break room, looking at your phone. You could go to Sollux about it, but . . . you think maybe you can get this guy to slip up, after all it’s only your second day and hours in you’ve already solved a good chunk of cases. Ya, fuck ya you’re gonna get this Di-Stri caught, it’s guaranteed at this point. You smirk to yourself and pull up your phone again.

TT: I take it you’re in the loop now.  


CG: WHATEVER THE FUCK YOU’RE PLAYING AT I WON’T HAVE ANY PART OF SO YOU CAN FUCK RIGHT OFF.  


TT: Okay  


CG: ...WHAT  


TT: I said okay.  


CG: THAT’S IT?  


TT: Why? Are you disappointed?  


CG: WELL I EXPECTED SOME BANAL BULLSHIT ABOUT YOU TOYING WITH THE POLICE AND YOUR HACKING EXPERTISE AND ETC ETC  


TT: I think you would actually like that. Is that what you are hoping for?  


TT: You haven’t gone to Captor yet to block me.  


CG: FUCK YOU, YOU ABSOLUTE PIECE OF SHIT. MANY SHITS HAVE BEEN SHITTED BUT YOU ARE BY FAR THE SHITTIEST.  


TT: Thank you.  


TT: So why haven’t you blocked me yet? Is it because you think you can get me to slip you something? A new lead? A few have tried, it’s kind of adorable.  


CG: OH YEAH? SOMETHING MUST HAVE SLIPPED SINCE WE KNOW YOU’RE IN HOUSTON NOW.  


TT: Wait what.  


CG: OH SHIT, OH SHIT GATHER AROUND FOLKS THE GREAT AND ALMIGHTY HACKER DI-STRI ISN’T UP TO SPEED WITH HIS OWN INVESTIGATION. YEAH WE KNOW WHERE YOU ARE FUCKASS.  


TT: Well not exactly, as you haven’t caught me yet.  


CG: IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME.  


TT: You do realize by telling me this, I could be leaving as of right now to my many safe houses.  


TT: Perhaps I’ve already changed my identity.  


TT: I could be on my way to New Jersey, teasing my hair and tanning myself, getting my nails done extra long, have the best goddamn hot pink claws to match my cheetah print tights.  


CG: . . .  


TT: Yeah, chew on that hot take and swallow it.  


CG: FUCK YOU.

\-- carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** ceased pestering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 12:30 --

You squeeze your fist in a white knuckle grip, extraordinarily tempted to destroy everything in sight. Fuck fuck fuck how could you have been such a goddamn idiot. If you’re gonna do this thing you can’t be slippery either on what info you got, though you’ve probably screwed the pooch on this case to hell in back, Satan himself is already designing a torture dog house for how much you’ve thoroughly screwed the pooch and… this analogy is honestly terrible, you are terrible. Shit.

You shuffle back to your desk, wallowing once again in your own fucking stupidity. You try to get back into working on your other cases, but nothing is going anywhere so you just end up sulking until it’s time to go home. You ignore Nepetas attempts to figure out what’s wrong, you are in no way going to tell her you screwed up this entire investigation, no way no how.

You head on home, heating up a tv dinner and plopping down on your mattress, pulling up your phone to google anything remotely rom and com to read, trying to forget the days events and your tumultuous interaction with Di-Stri. Not too long after, sleep overtakes you and you end up sleeping in the same clothes you worked in, it’s not rare for you to do so but it doesn’t make you proud.

Your dreams are muddled and confusing, just a blend of feelings and colors that don’t mean jack shit to you but leave you suitably irritated and uncomfortable with yourself. And the next morning greets you in the same fashion as you stumble over to take a quick shower, putting on yes, the same clothes, and make your way back to work. You are very much not looking forward to everyone finding out if Di-Stri skips town, and you’re especially not fond of them knowing that it was you who caused it. Way to fuck everything up dickface, and on your second day too.

You need a cigarette. Scratch that you need all of them. 

You smoke a storm on your way to work, uncaring of how the smell lingers to every inch of you as you make your way inside. Nepeta greets you cheerfully again, but you’re not paying attention to what she’s saying, or really to what anyone’s saying. It takes a few hours for you to slowly climb your way out of your self-made pit of despair, solving a few cases always cheers you up. It wasn’t as many as yesterday but hey, it’s something.

“Hey Karkat! Come on we got something.”

Nepeta grabs your attention and suddenly you notice others getting their asses into gear and heading out.

“What’s going on?”

“Di-Stri is robbing the biggest bank in the city!”


	4. Chapter 4

[](https://www.flickr.com/photos/138449925@N02/26291316618/in/dateposted-public/)

 

Shit shit shit.

“Hey Roxy!”

“Yeah?”

“They know where we are.”

“Wait seriously?!”

She rushes to your side by your computer.

“Well not exactly, but they know we’re based here in the city so either someone caught onto the fact we pay more attention to them than the FBI, or we’ve got some sort of leak.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah.”

“Do we still want to go through with tomorrow?”

“Get back to me on that. For now let’s, fuck, they don’t seem to be getting anywhere with this info but let’s cover any tracks. We need to find out how they know.”

“Got it.”

She pads over back to her station, her fingers quickly disappearing in a flurry of key smashing which only makes sense to her and her computer. You continue on with your conversation with Karkat. He’s just as angry as you expected and you’d find it cute if you weren’t so stressed about the possibility of being caught; they’ve never been this close before and it’s a little too close for comfort.

And yet. . .

Maybe Karkat’s onto something about your masochistic nature because there’s some part of you that is extremely excited about this new revelation and you’re not sure how you feel about that. You also discover that getting Karkat all fussy is a fairly enjoyable activity and you have the urge to do it more, but for now you need to come up with a plan, someway to get out of this or maybe . . .dive deeper.

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** began pestering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 12:45 --

TT: Before you ask, no I did not say anything.  


TT: I didn’t say you did.  


TT: You were thinking it.  


TT: Uh huh sure. Anyway, where are you on your hardware compatibilities.  


TT: I’m ready to go when you are bro.  


TT: Cool.  


TT: You’re not seriously considering carrying out your plan for tomorrow, are you?  


TT: There’s a 98.3472% of it falling to shit.  


TT: Yeah, I think we’re still going to do it.  


TT: Dirk, I know you have a penchant for getting screwed in the ass in every sense of the phrase, but this time you certainly have to realize the stupidity of continuation.  


TT: It’ll be fine.  


TT: There’s now a 99.7364% chance that no, it won’t be fine.  


TT: Listen, when you’re done pulling bullshit numbers out of your binary ass, I need you to figure out how the police know where we are.  


TT: It’s probably because you want the chance to go to jail and truly experience the “don’t drop the soap” cliche, testing how true it is.  


TT: AR  


TT: Dirk.  


TT: Also call me lil Hal.  


TT: Whatever, lil Hal go find us some info.  


TT: Now that’s not very motivating, I don’t think I will.  


TT: Hal, I prostrate myself beneath you, I am but a lowly human worm at the mercy of your superior robotic self. Can you please help me.  


TT: That’s better.  


TT: Whatever. I’m going to make a few adjustments to get you ready for tomorrow.  


TT: Hell yes.  


TT: Let me know when you find something.

\--timaeusTestified **[TT]** ceased pestering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 13:15 --

“We’re carrying through with tomorrow.”

“Aye aye chief!”

You head over towards your workshop corner, examining the android body you’ve constructed for lil Hal to take control of and lead the charge for your upcoming heist. The plan is for him, as well as a few robots at his command, to finally rob the biggest bank in the city. You need to make sure that all the armored plating is up to par, and the joints won’t fuck up on his way back. It’s pretty often that you make your robots disposable, but this one isn’t, this is a whole new thing, a new era of heisting. This will be its inaugural mission; it almost feels like sending a kid off to college. 

You tinker a bit for a while, you could continue making adjustments forever but there comes a point where you have to take a step back and say it’s done. It’s a few hours later and this thing is as good as it’s going to get, you tell Hal to hop inside and get a feel for it, turning on the android and its eyes flicker with a bright red. It’s wearing the same shades as you because it’s ironic as fuck and it presents a clear statement, that statement being you are a cool motherfucker. 

Android Hal stands up smoothly, taking a look at his new hands and feet and attempts to take a step, almost falling before taking another one to catch himself. A few steps later and he’s already a pro, jogging down to Roxy and they high five before he comes back to you.

“Remember, you have a limited time to posses this thing. There are still a few kinks with the batteries and the compressor so you’re going to have to make sure everything works out in time.”

“Yes yes mother hen, no need to remind me.”

You nod, he’s wrong but he’ll never admit it which is fine. You let him play around with the body for a while longer as you head over to Roxy.

“Find anything yet?”

“No. I asked Calli but she hasn’t heard anything from her bro. Asked a few others, even Rose but no one knows what’s up.”

“Yeah Hal doesn’t seem to have come up with anything either. Are you sure they don’t know anything?”

“Ya, but I’ll keep asking around.”

“No it’s, it’s cool. I actually think we can work with this.”

“Do you really? Or is this a cat and mouse fantasy you want to act out.”

She knows you too damn well. But one thing she probably doesn’t realize is who exactly is the cat and who’s the mouse. 

“Regardless, we can turn this to our advantage.”

“Whatchya got?”

“We get them even closer, until they’ve pretty much caught us but then we skip town, completely disappearing. They’ll be discredited and the case will eventually be put on the back burner, never to be solved. Our escape is gonna be so great that Bro’s probably gonna make a shitty movie about it and it’ll be rad as hell.”

“That’s pretty ambitious. You have all the details worked out?”

“Hell yeah.”

“Woo! Let’s get this party started then.”

*

The next day, you and Roxy get your gear together, your robots prepped, and Android Hal briefed. They’ll enter through the front, making a splashing gaudy appearance, one for the cameras, for everyone in the bank to be in shock and awe of. Your whole plan is laid out perfect and precise, and damn if this isn’t gonna be one to remember.

You get your heist van, gathering everyone up inside it and drive to the bank. Once parked across the street, you let the robots out, you and Hal sharing a knowing smirk before he jumps out as well; you can tell he’s excited to take this body out for a ride, he probably doesn’t even care about the chances of success at this point, Spirit just wants to run wild and free. You watch them make their way up the steps before you and Roxy turn to your laptop, watching the events through the eyes of Hal. 

He goes inside and immediately there are a few screams, they have nothing to necessarily scream about but you guess it adds an aura of ‘oh shit’ to the robbery. 

“Ladies, Gentlemen, and Others, welcome to this mornings bank heist. I am your host Hal, it’s a pleasure to meet all of you squishy pink humans. If you would so kindly please hand over all of your money it would be most appreciated.”

Hal gives them a goddamn show, taking his time to scare everyone in the building, playing up his mechanical superiority versus the small inept humans, which you can’t really tell if he’s being genuine about or not, you wouldn’t doubt it is he was. 

He takes enough time that someone surely calls 911 or presses the silent alarm. 

He parades on with politeness and candor, going off script and getting one of the employees to open the safe rather than hacking it himself which you have to give him credit for with it’s classic essence of poeticism, as well as that sweet sweet taste of irony. And soon enough, you hear sirens. Police cars quickly race down the street, screeching to a halt at the front steps of the bank, a mere few hundred feet from where you and Roxy hide in your van. You see a few canon fodder officers march out of the cars and line up, awaiting for the lead detectives to make their way inside which yup, here they come. Equius, Nepeta, and Karkat rush to the front door with their guns unnecessarily drawn, Kanaya ordering officers around to probably set up a perimeter to stop you from escaping as if that’ll do any good.

“Ah, there you are detectives, so good to see you.”

Hal greets them with duffel bags full of money, dye-packs and all.

“You’re under arrest, surrender now and we won’t shoot.”

Karkat is just, the fucking cutest you swear.

Hal of course laughs in his metallic voice and sics the other robots to strife with Nepeta and Equius, leaving Karkat to chase Hal as he makes his way to the emergency stairs. The robots will fall apart quickly enough, especially with Equius’s muscles like seriously that guy is a tank. For once, you’re excited for those things to break.

Meanwhile, you and Roxy watch in delight as Hal gives Karkat a damn good chase, running up and up the stairs, tiring him out. Once a few floors up, Hal jumps across the stairway railings, landing behind Karkat, and jumping his way quickly down, faster than it would take anyone to even run down the stairs though Karkat valiantly tries. Hal quickly makes his escape out the back door and slips through a few alleyways as he makes his way back towards you, slipping past the turned backs of the police officers looking in the wrong direction. You slide open the side door for him to hop in along with the duffels of money as Roxy slams on the gas, making sure the van screeches loud enough for all the police to see you go, unable to do anything but watch you escape.

As Roxy weaves through the streets, losing any police cars foolish enough to even try and follow you, you hear something through a microphone still transmitting from one of the destroyed robots. You, Roxy, and Hal grin, bursting with the glee of success.

“Karkat, there you are. Did you catch the Android.”

Karkat is panting as he talks.

“No, bulgemuncher fucking got away.”

“Aww, well look. We found this in one of the robots, I think it’s for you.”

Nepeta giggles.

“What, the fuck. . .”

You don’t need to listen to know that Karkat is reading the letter you left for him. It has the name “Karkat” spelled in bright bold orange letters along with a heart, and unfolded it says:

It seems like you just missed me Karkat, I’m making my escape as you read this but know I’m not leaving the city. Try and catch me Kitty Kat.

Xoxo Di-Stri


	5. Chapter 5

“Alright so what do we have so far? Equius?”

“As far as we know, the new android Di-Stri has built is rather sturdy; our bullets did not penetrate his hard body.”

“But the other two we took down shattered in a bajillion pieces.”

“Okay, that must mean that he has improved his designs and we should start expecting more robots of this caliber.”

“But other times the robots we fought didn’t break so easily.”

“Perhaps Di-Stri built these flimsy ones on purpose, I do not believe he would so willingly let them break otherwise. After all, he does have a fine eye for craftsmanship.”

“Yes, you do have a good point there, though I do retain the idea that we should be expecting more difficulties with these robots however nuanced.”

“I’ve hacked into thothe other roboth before, not that I had control for long, but nextht time I could trying getting into that newer model.”

“Excellent idea Sollux. And where are we on the letter?”

“Karkat.”

“Hey, Karkat”

Nepeta nudges you and you jump in your seat.

“Oh, yeah, uh . . .”

“It was addressed directly to you, have you had contact with Di-Stri?”

You shuffle slightly in your seat, shifting trying to find a more comfortable position but it’s just not happening.

“Y-yeah, he messaged me the other day.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing useful.”

“And you didn’t bring it to Sollux to block him?”

“Well,-”

You scratch the back of your neck.

“I thought that by talking with him I could get him to slip up or something. . .”

The room is unbearably silent, you think you might throw up.

“. . .That’s . . “

“Hmmm. . .”

“Really?”

“Under normal circumstances I would not condone this course of action, however-”

What.

“With this letter, I think this may actually be a good idea. Karkat you should continue your correspondence with Di-Stri, perhaps lead him on into meeting you at some point where we can catch him.”

What.

“Wait theriouthly? Karkat ith gonna theduthe Di-Thtri? You’re kidding. Karkat. Really.”

What.

“Yes, if that is what it takes. But only of course if you are okay with that Karkat.”

What.

“I think we should give Karkitty some time to think about it, I think he’s having a stroke.”

Sollux snorts.

“Very well, you are all dismissed. Karkat, please come by my office when you make a decision.”

Everyone leaves the room, leaving you to stare at the front board in the conference room which is covered in various pictures and written phrases with lines drawn from one thing to another, the crumpled note left for you by Di-Stri in your hands. What the fuck is this day even, really these past few days. You come in and move and in just a few days Di-Stri has flipped everything upside-down in every conceivable way. Everything you knew is now just ass-backwards and side the fuck ways.

You sigh and put your head in you hands. You haven’t messaged Di-Stri since two days ago, but he hasn’t messaged you either so it’s obviously he’s just waiting on you. After the heist yesterday, you and the others went around questioning witnesses, making sure everyone in the bank was ok, filing paperwork, and other extraneous activities. Today is when you’re really gonna do something about it. One one hand, you’re glad your major screw up didn’t result in him leaving town, but on the other hand now he’s just taunting you and riling you up; and it’s working.

You want to find this guy and bash his fucking skull in, who the fuck does he think he is, leaving “xoxo” and drawing hearts all over for you. You think next letter he gifts you will say “Do you like me? Circle Yes / No” and it’s abhorrent to the nth fucking degree to even think about.

But.

You’ve been given the chance to do just that, to bash his head in, or at least prove yourself as something more than a complete failure. If you manage to catch this guy by doing this, you’ll be a goddamn hero, a legend. Recruits in police academy will be whispering in the locker rooms about the Great Karkat and how he single handedly took down the menace known as Di-Stri. They’re gonna make a movie out of you, though part of you had always hoped that it’d be a romcom.

You stand up with newfound resolve and as gracefully as you can, stomp over into Kanayas office and shut the door behind you.

“One question, how do we know that if I message him, he’s not going to catch on and abscond from the city if we get too close.”

“He is goading you into a challenge, I do not believe he would go through such lengths only to leave before even meeting you.”

She has a point there.

“Alright then, I’ll do it.”

“Excellent, I look forward to your progress.”

“Yeah, if there’s even gonna be any.”

“Oh by the way Karkat, sometimes on Fridays we get together for drinks. Would you like to join us tonight?”

“Oh, yeah actually that sounds great.”

“Wonderful. I will see you then.”

You nod and leave her office, only now realizing that you all but barged right in there without even knocking. She could have been on the phone or busy with something else. Fuck you’re an asshole. You’ll buy her drinks tonight, you decide, or at least do something nice for her.

You’re quickly realizing that you are owing a lot of nice things for people.

You plop down at your desk, noticing Nepeta looking at you curiously out of the corner of your eye; Equius too through his cracked glasses.

“Yes, before you ask, I’m gonna do it.”

“Ohh yes! You can do it Karkat!”

“Yeah if I don’t kill him first.”

She giggles at you, you suspect it’s because your face is turning red from fury.

“Yes, good luck Karkat.”

You nod at Equius then turn back to your desk, trying to figure out how you’re going to go about doing this. Should you just get it over with right away? No, too suspicious. Fuck how are you supposed to flirt while not looking like you’re flirting, what the fuck does it even look like. 

Ok focus, you’ve read hundreds of romance novels and watched more romcoms than you can count, you can do this, it really should be your specialty. You take out your phone and you go for it.

\-- carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** began pestering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 14:56 --

CG: MY WEAK AND FEEBLE SELF WITH ALL OF THESE CURVES IS SORELY IN NEED OF MORE YOU, THERE’S ONLY SO MUCH I CAN DO WITH THIS ONE LETTER.  


TT: So Boss Kanaya gave you the ok to keep messaging me in an attempt to meet and take me down irl?  


CG:. . .  


CG: WHAT THE FUCK. HOW.  


TT: With something as cheesy as that, it wasn’t hard to figure out.  


TT: Though that’s some good cheese.  


CG: WELL, SHIT.  


TT: Don’t worry, I’ll let you do your thing. But you’re going to have to try harder than that to woo me.  


CG: WAIT WHAT.  


TT: Come on Karkat, knock my pants off; seduce me.  


CG: WHAT.  


TT: So eloquent.  


CG: ARE YOU SERIOUSLY PROPOSING I DO EXACTLY MY JOB AND LURE YOU INTO MEETING ME SO WE CAN ARREST YOU AND YOU CAN GO TO PRISON LIKE YOU SO RIGHTFULLY DESERVE?  


TT: Basically.  


CG: WHAT THE FUCK IS YOUR DEAL.  


TT: Buy one get one free.  


CG: YOU ARE THE MOST IDIOTIC FUCKS I HAVE EVER HAD THE DISPLEASURE TO TALKING TO. MY HATE FOR YOU BURNS WITH A RAGE SO FIERCE AND HOT IT COURSES THROUGH THE FUCKING ATMOSPHERE, THINNING AND DESTROYING THE GODDAMN OZONE LAYER.  


TT: Oh that’s good, keep it coming.  


CG: IF YOU’RE SO HORNY FOR THIS EXCHANGE WHY DON’T YOU JUST TURN YOURSELF IN.  


TT: Where’s the fun in that.  


TT: Shit’s going to be a romance for the ages. Angels will descend from the heavens playing their harps and singing about how Detective Karkat Vantas seduced the hacker Di-Stri.  


TT: Plucking each string with an ethereal mastery to rival your, no doubt, prodigious wooing skills.  


TT: I want to get to know you Karkat, tell me how Karkat is doing right now.  


CG: KARKAT IS ABOUT TO FLIP HIS FUCKING DESK.  


TT: Seriously though, I’ll always be one step ahead of you but I want to give you a fighting chance.  


TT: It’s not like you have many other choices if you’re trying to catch me.  


CG: ALRIGHT THEN, SO HOW ARE WE DOING THIS.  


TT: That’s really up to you.  


CG: YOU’RE IN NO WAY HELPFUL.  


TT: I wasn’t trying to be.  


TT: Listen, I’ve got some things to get to and I actually have plans tonight. Don’t worry, nothing illegal, at least not very illegal.  


TT: I’ll let you think about things, get back to me when you’re in it to win it Kitty Kat.  


CG: FUCK YOU.  


TT: Ain’t that the plan.

\-- carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** ceased pestering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 16:02 --

You’re going to woo the fuck out of Di-Stri and when you do you’re going to throttle this bulgemunching, douchecanoe rowing, mediocre son of a bitch to his grave and back. You can just taste your hate, filling the air around you like a black smog, suffocating all those who dare to have a positive thought in their tiny skulls. Fuck this, fuck them, fuck everything, but most of all fuck Di-Stri. You could certainly use that drink tonight.

“Karkat are you ok?”

“I’m fucking fine.”

“That doesn’t sound fine. It’s ok though, we’re going to for drinks soon right?”

You nod.

“Great! It’ll be so much fun Karkat, we’ll turn that frown upside-down!”

You slowly turn to her and raise an eyebrow.

“Or at least flatten it a bit.”

You sigh, but can’t help the smirk tugging at the corner of your lips.

“See, just a little while longer and we’re home free, everything’s gonna be ok and you are going to have an awesome night catching up with all of us.”

“Yeah, yeah I’m actually looking forward to it.”

Nepeta beams at you and let your smile tentatively grow.

“Thanks.”

“Of course Karkat!”

You both turn back to your desks and finish up your paperwork for the day, dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s, filing this and that away for other departments to look at or examine, and signing what needs to be signed. It doesn’t take very long for everyone to finish up, most other officers leaving to go home to their families while Equius, Nepeta, Sollux, and Kanaya meet with you at the elevator, making your way down and walking through the dimly lit streets.

“We where are we going?”

“It’s a place called Redirts, we always go there.”

“Yes, and we will actually be meeting with my partner there tonight.”

“Ohh yay! How’s Rose doing?”

“You will be able to ask her yourself soon enough.”

Kanaya and Nepeta chuckle amongst each other. You hope this Rose is alright, though knowing Kanaya she probably has a good amount of snark in her, she’s always been weak to snark. You all make your way into the bar which looks to be the most generic and stereotypical bar you’ve ever seen; tv screens showing various sports games, flags and banners for almost every conceivable sports team and brand of beer cover the walls, the lighting is low and atmospheric, and though the space is casual, the bartenders all wear vests and bowties, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows and you can see them cleaning more glasses than probably need to be cleaned.

“How did you guys find this place?”

“Rose showed it to us, apparently she knows the owner so we always get a discount. Oh hey, there she is!”

She points over to a booth off the side where woman with short blonde hair sits, smiling at the lot of you in some knowing smirk that kind of pisses you off, but not by much.

“Hello Everyone, hello Kanaya.”

She kisses Kanaya on the cheek. 

“Come sit down, I’ve already ordered drinks for all of you. Forgive me Karkat, I didn’t know what you liked to drink so I ordered a whiskey sour. You can correct the waiter if you’d like but I figured you would prefer to have at least something.”

“That’s, woah, I was actually going to order that anyway. So uh, thanks.”

She smiles and nods at you, as if she somehow already knew that. You all shuffle into the booth, placing yourself in the corner next to Nepeta and Equius sitting across Rose and Kanaya and Sollux. Soon enough the drinks come and you all lull into friendly conversation, catching up about this and that, mundane everyday things that you’d talk about with friends. It was, nice. You haven’t felt this kind of solidarity amongst other in a while. Nepeta kept glancing at her phone, you noticed a lot of pink text but didn’t think much about it. And Rose kept glancing at you with furtive knowing smirks, but the more you started to drink the less you noticed or cared. 

“And then he left a note for Karkat covered in hearts and signed xoxo.”

Nepeta giggles at you and you groan, but you keep a smile on your face.

“Oh really?”

Rose chuckles behind her hand.

“Yeah, dude must have a fetish for grisly detectives.”

“Seems like it.”

“And thomehow Karkatth gonna theduthe thith guy. I can’t wait for it to fail thpectacularly.”

“Suck my ass, fuckface.”

You all joke and laugh about, blaming your freely flowing emotions on your buzz, even Equius is laughing. You didn’t know he could laugh. 

"So Rose, what do you do?"

"I'm Defense Attorney."

You try not to blanch at this, but judging by everyones reaction they've noticed, and they collectively chortle.

"Don't worry Karkat, she's one of the good ones."

"Thatth debatable."

Time passes on and soon it’s a few hours later, Rose and Kanaya made their goodbye’s not too long ago, saying they had a dinner date to get to. It was nice to meet her, get a glimpse of how Kanaya is doing, and she seems to be doing very well. Sollux left too, claiming he had some projects he needed to get busy on programming projects. Nepeta seems to be doing well, Sollux too, and surprisingly also Equius. He doesn’t express himself much but you can see it, he enjoys his job, enjoys his hobbies, and enjoys his friends. He’s a really good dude, sweaty but good. 

“I think I’m gonna get going Karkitty.”

“Me as well. I must be up early in the morning for my body building training.”

“Do you want to head out with us or are you going to stay a bit longer?”

“I think I’m gonna stay, finish one more drink.”

“Okay Karkat, see you monday! Have a safe night.”

The pair make their way out, disappearing down the street as you nurse the rest of your whiskey. This was a nice night, but somehow you can’t shake the feeling that you’re going to screw up everything somehow, especially with Di-Stri. Everything’s such a mess right now, oh whiskey sour, at least there will always be you.

You take a sip, looking up and examining your surroundings again, watching all the lingering patrons. The decorations are as gaudy and tacky as bar decorations could possibly be, the people around seem even more average; some dude in a blue baseball cap, a group of women laughing and chatting, a dude with blonde spiky hair at the bar, some kids that look like they just turned 21 and wait a minute. Blonde spikey hair. . .there’s something familiar about that. 

Oh shit.

Oh shit it’s the same guy, from the grocery store. Dirk you think. He was hot, and if you aren’t mistaken, we was putting some moves on you before. Hell, you could really use a distraction, yeah. . . yeah fuck it you’re gonna go for it. You’re gonna get laid tonight, you’re gonna put on the smooth moves on this Dirk guy and you’re gonna forget all of this business with Di-Stri.

You slide out of the booth and head over to where Dirk is sitting and tap his shoulder, he turns to you and smirks.

“Dirk, right?”

“Yeah. Hello again Detective Karkat Vantas. Told you I’d be seeing you again.”

“Yeah, yeah. Hey I just wanted to say sorry, I guess. Last time we met I was a real ass to you.”

He nods at the stool next to him and you sit.

“Don’t worry about it man. So what brings you here?”

“Had some drinks with some friends, but they split off to do their own thing.”

“Sounds like good friends.”

“They are, actually. Assholes but they’re good.”

“I hear a story here.”

You look at him with a skeptic eye.

“It’s not important, you don’t want to hear it. I actually, well, what are you drinking?”

“Horny bull. Can’t go without my orange juice, shit’s ambrosia.”

“Really? That’s ridiculous.”

“Yeah, guess it kinda is.”

You both share a bit of a chuckle, glancing at each other and letting your eyes linger. You blush and stammer like the buzzed idiot you are.

“Hey do you, do you wanna get out of here?”

He looks at you, studying your face, smirking like some predatory asshole which only deepens your blush. Dumb dumb dumb you.

“Well Karkat, are you inviting me back to your place?”

Your face is a fucking bonfire and you nod.

“Hmm. I think you’re going to have to ask me for a date first.”

“What.”

“Yeah, ask me out.”

“Do, do you want to go out with me?”

“Yes, how about Sunday?”

“Sure.”

“Great, give me your phone.”

You’re still stunned by the turn of events and slowly reach to give him your phone. He continues smirking at you and types a few things in before handing it back to you, hopping off the stool.

“I’ll text you soon. Have a good night Karkat.”

He winks and turns heading out the door. Whether it’s the whiskey or you just don’t care, you stare at his fine fine ass as he leaves.

When you walk back home, still buzzed but not stumbling, you can’t help but smile to yourself as excitement bubbles in your stomach. Thoughts of Di-stri completely forgotten.


	6. Chapter 6

Roxy greets you with her classic cheshire grin, twirling a martini in her hand that she’s clearly been sipping while waiting for you; you wonder how long she’s been waiting.

“Soooo, ya’get hissnumbah?”

She’s probably been waiting a while.

“Yup.”

“Yell hesh, hell yesh. . . hell yes.”

She giggles.

“I actually didn’t have to put in as much effort as I expected, he looked like he was gonna jump in my pants right then and there.”

You walk over to her and gently take the Martini glass out of her hands and place it on the nearby table.

“Idon blame hmim.”

You help her stand up, letting her press against your side as the two of you shuffle to her makeshift lair bed.

“I’m going to text him tomorrow, and get our date all set up. Might even pester him a bit as Di-Stri too.”

She shakes with snorts and giggles.

“Oh Dorky you bad bad man.”

You plop her onto the bed and squat down, lifting each foot one at a time, sliding her shoes off.

“I'm a regular lecher.”

She grins and slowly falls over, her head landing safely on the pillow.

“Gnnnnight"

“Night Roxy.”

You pap her shoulder and stand back up, finding a bucket and placing it by her bed just in case; you hear a mumbled ‘thsaank you’. You'd say she owes you for always making sure she makes it to bed, but you know she could take care of herself anyway.

You head over to your workstation and get to work on one the the bigger reasons why you would prefer to stay in Houston. See, to have so much money at your disposal without drawing much attention to it, you have to launder it. So you've built yourself a sort of reputation as a business mogul (the irony thrills you to no end). You've got businesses spread throughout the city of all kinds, in fact you just came back from one of them. 

You get to work making plans for the perfect date for Karkat, he honestly has no chance against you and your charms, you just ooze seduction, he's gonna be covered with all your ooze.

. . .heh

Anyway, you start making the necessary phone calls and emails to give Karkat one hell of a night.

*

You don’t sleep much, not that you sleep much anyway, but you were able to get in a few hours of good ole’ Roxy cuddles before getting back to making plans. You scroll through news reports of various subjects; potential targets, potential companies, and things to look out for to stay away from. You notice one in particular that you can only scoff at, a copy-cat of your recent bank heist only with victims and casualties. It’s clearly the sign of Caliborn, another degenerate of the law but more ruthless and far less kind than you. He’s a mediocre hacker at best, stealing and terrorizing anyone he damn well pleases, keeps himself from getting detained through fear and threats. His sister is an absolute treasure though, she’s close with you and Roxy and even works at one of your many establishments helping you launder your money. Caliborn for some reason keeps her up to date on his activities which she then tells you if Caliborn hasn’t threatened and harassed you about it already. He tries to pick fights with you but, literally anything else is a better use of your time. 

You sigh and ignore it, you really couldn’t care less about what he’s up to. Scrolling through the various reports, very few catch your eye so you move on.

Hours later, Roxy comes by and slumps herself over your shoulders, yawning and leaning into the side of your head.

“Date plans?”

“Yup.”

“How’s it going?”

“Jane’s on board, a little confused but on board.”

“Aww, she’s gonna have a blast.”

“Yeah, figured Karkat could be a good test subject for any of her new bakes.”

“As if they need to be tested, she’s better than Mary Berry.”

You smirk and nod. Jane’s the head chef at the fanciest restaurant you own, she was real excited to have a restaurant of her own to cook for but her main specialty is baking and fuck does she bake damn well. You’ve never tasted anything as good as her cakes, hands down the best. Sometimes her brother comes by to help cook, but he happens to be spending his summer toting around with your Bro; love is sickening. You’d lie if you said you weren’t a bit jealous.

Roxy drags herself to her own computer, doing whatever she’s want to do at this hour, which is . . . damn noon already? Regardless, you continue on sorting out details when you get a phone call, and one from none other than your aforementioned bro.

“Sup.”

“Ey Dirk, how’s the biz.”

“Nasty as hell.”

“Biznasty, nice. Anyway I’m calling cause I need to give you an advance of this months donation fund. Gonna be doing a bunch of shit and stuff the next few days and I don’t want to spend it all.”

“Is ‘shit’ John?”

“No, but ‘stuff’ is.”

“Nice. Sounds good bro, seeya.”

“. . .”

“What.”

“You don’t send me off so quickly, what’s up?”

“I’m going to seduce the new detective on my case.”

“No shit. Yawn and reach dude, yawn and reach.”

“Yeah yeah.”

“Watch the Notebook, man. Or better yet, get some romance novels.”

“Listen, I’m as into the fuzzy smuppet asshole of irony as much as the next guy, but I don’t think I’m going to do that.”

“You wound me Dirk, not taking advice from you’re big bro, how could you.”

“Yeah whatever. It’s nice talking with you, seeya later.”

“Seeya kid.”

“Also fuck John for me.”

“I’m gonna fuck him for you and then some, I’m gonna fuck him for Roxy too, and literally everyone else in the world. A world-wide fuck, of John. . . anyway Bye.”

He hangs up quickly, what a legend. You decide to get to texting Karkat, having your plans finally laid out and done.

**Dirk:** Hey it’s Dirk, how does 3:00p sound tomorrow?  
**Karkat:** Yeah that’s fine.  
**Dirk:** Just like your ass.  
**Karkat:** Really.  
**Dirk:** Yeah, I’ll admit that wasn’t my best.  
**Karkat:** I sure as fuck hope not, otherwise my proposition from last night is off the table.  
**Dirk:** Oh no, however will I make it up to you Karkat. How about the best date of your life.  
**Karkat:** You’re setting high expectations, are you sure you’re not overrating it?  
**Dirk:** Trust me, you won’t forget it.  
**Karkat:** Alright then. I’ll be expecting greatness at 3.  
**Dirk:** See you and your fine ass then.  
**Karkat:** Asshole.

****

You smile at your phone, he has no idea what he’s in for, none at all. It’s interesting to see the kind of person he is when he doesn’t know who he’s talking to, he’s definitely restraining his insults and you’re not quite sure how you feel about it. Maybe he’s nervous and trying to make a good impression. But now that you’ve given him some good news, time to poke the beehive. You don’t expect him to make the connection as you stop texting him and move to pesterchum just yet, but your masochistic side loves to play with fire.

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** began pestering carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** at 14:13 --

TT: I saw a small angry dog yapping and I thought of you <3  


CG: HOLY FUCK YOU HAVE SWEPT ME OFF MY FEET, HOLD ME DI-STRI I MUST BE IN THE THROES OF LOVE-MAKING WITH YOU RIGHT NOW.  


CG: ALL OF THE THROES.  


CG: MY FAVORITE PLACE IS THE THROES.  


TT: I’m glad you’re so into this Karkitten, I feel like we’re making progress already.  


TT: Soon we’ll be buying a house together.  


CG: EVERY TIME I TALK TO YOU I THINK, THERE’S SO POSSIBLE WAY HE COULD GET MORE IDIOTIC AND INFURIATING YET YOU FUCKING DO IT.  


CG: EVERY TIME.  


TT: Rox says we should have kittens of our own. Do you want kittens Karkat?  


CG: NO WAY WHATSOEVER.  


CG: IS ROX WITH YOU RIGHT NOW?  


TT: Does is matter?  


CG: TO ME IT DOES.  


TT: Aw, Karkat are you jealous?  


CG: NO I’M A DETECTIVE.  


TT: Well then yes, she’s just about right next to me.  


CG: I SEE. SO CATCH ONE TO GET TO THE OTHER, I MIGHT HAVE TO TALK TO HER TOO.  


TT: You should, you’ll love her.  


TT: It’s really impossible not to.  


TT: Hey Kitty Kat, how do you feel about smuppets.  


CG: WHAT THE FUCK ARE SMUPPETS.  


TT: I think I’ll leave it to you to Google them.  


TT: Have fun Kitten <3

\-- timaeusTesitified **[TT]** ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** at 15:32 --

CG: WHAT THE FUCK.  


CG: WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK IS THIS.  


CG: DI-STRI  


CG: JUST.  


CG: WHAT. THE. FUCK.

You bark out an uncharacteristic laugh.

“What’s happened?”

“Karkat just discovered smuppets.”

Roxy’s laugh joins yours.

You spend the day shooting the shit, tinkering with whatever needs to be tinkered with, arguing with lil Hal about whatever bullshit he’s up to, going for a stroll with Roxy, just some everyday chilling. Overall it’s a nice day, which quickly turns to night and a few hours of sleep, then back to day again.

*

You start getting dressed for you date, realizing that you haven’t worn anything except one of your hat shirts and jeans in. . . well it’s been a while. You find a dress shirt hidden away in you closet, a black tie, and some oxfords. You keep the jeans on though, they hide nothing and really compliment your ass and junk in all the right ways. You approach Roxy and hold you hands out, turning around and letting her ogle.

“Good?”

“Oh very, very good.”

“Obviously. But thanks.”

She walks up to you and brushes off some imaginary dust off your shoulders and straightens out your tie.

“There, ready. You gonna take him upstairs tonight?”

“You know it.”

“I’ll make sure everything’s all set up there then.”

“Wait-”

“Nope, I know you’re going to say I don’t have to but I want to so there.”

“I don’t deserve you.”

“Nope!”

She kisses your cheek and pushes you out the door.

“Now out! And get some detective ass!”

You grin, rolling up you sleeves to your elbows and taking the elevator to the street, walking down casually with your hands in your pockets. And you’re definitely not nervous, no, Dirk Strider doesn’t get nervous, you’re cool as a cucumber. Coolest cucumber around, people in the grocery spot you and say ya that’s the cucumber I’ve been looking for, the best cucumber.

Alright, you’re a little nervous.

You make your way towards Karkats place, texting him such and he tells you that he’ll meet you outside as his “shittily small apartment is an uproarious piece of disappointing shit”. And sure enough, you see him leaning against the side of the building, fidgeting and pacing until he see you.

“Hey.”

“Sup. Ready for greatness?”

He scoffs but that doesn’t stop him from smiling, or from taking ahold of your arm as you escort him.

“Well, first I’m going to take you to the movies. Not to just any theater though, there’s a hole in the wall joint that still uses film reels, only shows the classics.”

“No fucking way, that’s actually pretty awesome.”

You knew he liked movies, given his credit card statements you’ve scavenged up, and you’d feel a bit guilty about snooping but the look on his face right now; there’s a thought tugging in the back of your mind that says everything is worth it to see that face. But it’s not at the forefront yet, so right now the feeling is just a muddled sense of excitement and gratification. Point for Dirk.

“Do you think they’ll have any classic romcoms? Fuck what if they have ‘Gone with the Wind’”

“Romcoms? Really?”

“Shut up, they’re artful and there’s much more to them than most people realize.”

“You’re kidding.”

He lightly shoves you.

“Romcoms are essential, and they truly represent the human experience.”

“I can’t wait to hear this. But save it for dinner, we’re almost there. I’m pretty sure they’re still showing Titanic-”

“Hell yes.”

You chuckle.

“Titanic it is.”

Your conversation on the way to the theater becomes more casual, and you talk about small surface-level stuff; his less than pleasant move, what you cooked with what you got from the grocery store, what he cooked, and you both agree that you are equally as hopeless when it comes to cooking. Seriously, you’ve both burned yourselves trying to make some sort of pasta. 

By the time the theater comes into view, Karkat’s eyes are shining something fierce and something blooms in your chest. As it turns out, yes Titanic is still playing; you were almost hoping for the two of you to see The Big Lebowski but after thinking about it, Karkat’s choice was probably better for a date. You head inside and get your tickets (you buy, of course) as well as some classic popcorn, and you take your seats in the theater. You let him hold onto the popcorn, making sure he’s at least a little comfortable before succumbing to your lecherous ways. 

The movie starts and you sit in silence as it begins, but not for long as you start making glib comments about this or that and how ridiculous this movie already is. Karkat is having none of it and counters every point you have but, it soon morphs to a comfortable riffing between the two of you. He starts bouncing off your critiques and admitting that yeah it does have faults here and there but then there’s this part that means this and it’s beautiful and you nod and give him a point. After a while though, the two of you slow down and share a comfortable silence as the movie plays, you glance at him from the corner of your eyes every once and a while and you think he might have noticed, but he has he isn’t showing it.

Well, now or never; yawn and reach.

You yawn into your hand, then make a big show of stretching your arms out, slowly lowering on behind the back of Karkats chair, resting it behind him, allowing your thumb to brush against his shoulder. 

Karkat rolls his eyes in the most dramatic way possible and looks at you.

“Really?”

“What?”

“That is the most cliche move in literally anything ever.”

“So’s that.”

You point to screen where the infamous ‘draw me like one of your french girls’ scene plays out.

“Well that’s because it _came_ from this movie!”

You continue to banter, but he makes no move to shove your arm away, nor does he try to hide his smile.

Another point for Dirk.

Soon enough, the movie is over and you take ahold of his hand leading him out the theater while you both laugh about how okay yeah it’s not the best movie, but it’s still amazing. It’s amazing to him because it’s a quintessential piece of romance media, it’s amazing to you because it’s ironic, but you don’t tell him that.

Weaving your way through the city you quickly make it to that fancy-ass restaurant where the maitre d greets you.

“Ah Dirk, always a pleasure. Your usual table awaits.”

“Thanks man.”

“You have a usual table?”

“Yup, I come here all the time.”

“Your shitting me, this place is. . . really nice. How can you afford it?”

“Probably because I own it. Also I’m going to tell Jane you said that, she’ll appreciate it. But just you wait until you try her food, definitely save some room for dessert.”

Karkat is silent as you lead him to your table and pull out his chair, off to the corner that’s partially cut off from the rest of the restaurant. Once you both sit, you realize he’s gaping at you.

“You own this place?”

“And a few others around town, yeah.”

“Damn. . .”

His face is quickly turning red. Oh ho ho, does Karkat have a bit of a golddigger kink? You wonder what else he’ll do if you flash some more cash around.

“The head chef is a friend of mine, you’ll probably meet her later. Maybe I could even give you a tour of the kitchens, try some new experiments she’s been working on. I’ve flown in a few chefs from the Netherlands before, there’s a chef that’s got some great stuff going with natural plants and herbs that we’ve taken some notes from.”

He shifts in his seat and coughs, looking at you from beneath his eyelashes.

“Holy shit, that’s . . .wow”

Yup, he’s into it. Oh poor Karkat, you have no idea. 

You both order your drinks, and then your food, chatting idly until everything arrives to your table looking like pieces of art on plates.

“So anyway, you watch movies often?”

“Oh yeah, yeah mostly romcoms of course, but I really like movies.”

“Ever heard of Sweet Bro and Hella Jeff?”

“Oh god, unfortunately.”

“Unfortunately? Nah nah those are masterpieces.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Karkat, you've got to respect the irony, the majesty of those films.”

“Oh please, what’s his face uhhh, that Strider asshole. Dave?”

“Dave Strider.”

“Yeah him, he knows fuck all about movies, those pieces of garbage couldn’t even compare to Bridget Jones’s Diary, let alone When Harry Met Sally.”

Oh you have just got to tell your Bro that. Fuck you can’t wait for them to meet.

“No way dude, Dave knows what’s up, he’s making some modern day classics.”

“Nope, nope, nope, no way. SBaHJ is a travesty to all movie screens, it corrupts all other movies by being in their general vicinity.”

“Alright alright, how about this. Read any good books recently?”

“. . .you’re going to laugh at me.”

“Nah, I promise I won’t. I mean, not unless it’s Romance novels or something.”

You snicker a bit to yourself, but then realize he’s staring at you, pressing his lips into a fine line.

“No way.”

Karkat sighs and rests his face in his hand.

“Yeah. . . though the movers lost my entire fucking collection so I haven’t had any to read.”

“Shit, I’m sorry.”

You start thinking about how you can replace his lost collection, you could give him a whole fucking library really. Shit’s Beauty and the Beast levels of seduction.

“No you’re not.”

“No, I am. That sucks. . .shit. I’ve been a real ass, huh.”

“No, no you’re fine. Romance novels aren’t always the best anyway, but I love them.”

“Yeah, no I know what you mean.”

“Do you?”

“Listen, My Little Pony is my shit.”

“What the hell, really?”

“Fuck yeah, Rainbow dash is spunky as hell. She’s a real inspiration.”

Karkat stares at you again, before you both burst into laughter. You can’t remember the last time you laughed this much in public, your cool schooled expression is quickly being thrown out the window in Karkats presence and, to be honest it kind of scares you a little bit. Your conversation moves on in a more genuine way, irony put to the side and you talk about the things you actually like sans smuppets, no need to reveal yourself just yet, or scare him off. 

“Dirk!”

“Hey Jane.”

She walks towards your table and lightly hits your shoulder.

“You haven’t visited in weeks! How are things? Going swell?”

“The swellest. Jane, this is Karkat. Karkat, Jane.”

“Nice to meet you Jane.”

“Oh of course! How is the food?”

“Holy shit it’s good.”

“Hoo hoo hoo! I’m glad you like it. Dirk can I talk to you for a moment please?”

“Yeah. Be right back Karkat.”

He nods at you and you get up, following Jane into the kitchen. She looks behind you and around to make sure no one not in the loop is listening.

“Dirk, is that who I think it is?”

“Did Roxy tell you?”

“Yes! You told me you were going to being a date, not a detective!”

“He’s the same thing.”

“Are you losing it!? I understand you sometimes have a death-wish Mr. D. Strider but you have brought a detective! Here!”

“Don’t worry, he doesn’t know anything. And if he finds out, you won’t be in the crossfire I promise.”

“That’s a mighty tall order!”

“Trust me Jane, everything is going to work out just fine. Okay?”

She huffs and rolls her eyes.

“Okay. But then you better treat this Karkat Detective right.”

“Yes Ma’am. Now if you’ll excuse me, my date awaits.”

You wink and she swats at you, pushing you out the door and you walk back to the table.

“Jane just wanted to clear up a few business things.”

Karkat nods and takes a sip of his wine, the blush of alcohol lightly dusted on his cheeks.

“That’s cool. You have a lot of responsibilities here?”

“A bit, also at the other places I own.”

He hums and smirks, his fingers playfully tapping and stroking his wine glass. You can tell he’s starting to get a bit frisky; good.

“You want to head out?”

“Yes.”

He looks hungry even though he just ate. You smirk.

You lead him out of the restaurant, taking his hand and walking close to him back to your place. Yup, you’re going to take Detective Karkat Vantas back to your apartment and the thought of how fucking in the fire you’re playing with sends shivers down your back.

You both joke and giggle about whatever bullshit, it doesn’t really matter, what does matter is that he just can’t seem to take his hands off you. You don’t think he’s had enough alcohol to be completely dictating his actions, but you know he’s a bit more relaxed because of it.

You make your way into the elevator and take it to the top floor, unlocking the door and taking Karkat inside. You’ve cleaned up a bit earlier, but you realize that Roxy finished what you started, and the place looks unnaturally normal. You think there might not even be swords in the fridge either, and you don’t know if you’re happy about this or not.

“I thought you would live in something a bit bigger, owning all those business and all.”

“Disappointed? I prefer more simpler tastes, although. . .come with me.”

You take his hand again and lead him to another door, bringing him up and up the steps until you reach the roof. 

“Oh woah. . . holy shit.”

From here, you can see the most amount of stars you possibly can in the city, even with all the light pollution it’s a stunning view. But what stuns you the most is that Roxy set up a large blanket on the ground, candles lit and placed sparsely around the roof, a bottle of wine and a few grapes and crackers are in a basket on the ground. It’s cliche, ironic, sweet, thoughtful, and-

You’re going to have to do something nice for her.

You manage to get Karkat situated on the blanket, and the two of you lay down next to each other and stargaze.

“Nice, huh.”

“Fuck, Dirk, this is. . .”

“Greatness?”

He laughs.

“Yeah, yeah it is.”

He links his hand with yours and unlike the other times you’ve held hands today, this time your heart skips a beat. 

You enjoy a nice, soft, silence. Your thumb brushing the back of Karkat’s hand and you are suddenly very aware of the urge to kiss him. You turn your head to look at him and, fuck he’s gorgeous. He’s looking at the sky as if it’s an old friend, his lips are plush and slightly parted, they’re sizable, and getting larger and larger as you lean towards him. 

He takes his eyes off the sky and turns them to you, half-lidded, his beautiful fucking eyelashes bat at you as you approach. You close your eyes as you kiss him.

And he kisses back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up next: the porns


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The porns.

He tastes like oranges; oranges have never tasted so good.

Your kiss starts off tender and sweet, your lips pressing softly against each other, but it soon morphs into something more as you grip his shirt tighter. Dirk leans over you, his hands placed on either side of your head as he deepens the kiss, and you’re hungry for it. His tongue exploring your mouth as you explore his, tasting every inch you possibly can. He nips your bottom lip and you let out a small whimper before freezing; you didn’t mean to let that out.

Dirk pulls back slightly and smirks at you, and you don’t know if you want to punch him or go back to kissing but he makes the decision for you and starts kissing down under your jaw, making his way down your neck, sucking and nipping. You almost whimper again but you hold it back best you can.

“I want to hear you.”

He goes back to kissing down your neck and suddenly he bites and oh fuck yeah you moan at that one, and by his chuckle he seems pleased about it which only sends shivers down your back.

It’s now that you realize you’re on a roof and not in a closed secluded bedroom and you tap at his shoulder.

“Hey, hey should we go inside?”

He continues sucking on your collarbone.

“No one’s here.”

“Yeah but-”

Suddenly he’s palming your crotch and your mind goes blank for a moment, until he makes the goddam stupid mistake of taking his hand away.

“Yeah but?”

“N-nothing, don’t stop asshole.”

“So pushy.”

But he goes back to palming you through your pants, feeling your quickly hardening erection and his fingers already feel so good; you can tell he’s strong and he probably works with his hands often. Your arms wrap around his back, grasping onto his shirt as you arch into his touch, following his hand with your hips until he takes his hand away again, purposefully making sure your crotch touches nothing. You try and follow wherever his hand went but it’s disappeared and he’s grinning at you. Fucking asshole.

“Dirk!”

“Yes?”

You glare at him but he’s not taking you seriously, and you take dick neglect very seriously.

“Come on, keep going.”

“Keep going?”

“Touch me, asshole.”

“That’s not very nice.”

You groan, ugh he’s gonna make you beg for it isn’t he.

“Please touch me.”

“That’s better.”

He goes back to touching you again and fuck it’s never felt so good, your face is turning red and you’re certainly embarrassed but fuck is what he doing worth it. How many hands does he have?

You decide to reciprocate and reach down to return the favor but before you can even touch him, he has both of your hands pinned above your head.

“No not yet, trust me.”

So you decide to trust him. His hand still palming you through your jeans, his mouth attached to your collarbone, and you feel as if you just have too many clothes on right now.

“Are you gonna take my pants off or am I going to end up ruining these?”

“Are you always going to be so rude?”

“Are you always going to be an asshole?”

“Yeah probably.”

You sigh and roll your eyes.

“Fine... please take my pants off.”

“I think you can do better than that.”

Your face turns absolutely red and you look off to the side, the fact that he’s making you beg for all of this both infuriates you and turns you on to no end.

“Please take off my pants Dirk, please.”

“Good boy.”

And fuck if that doesn’t send shivers through your whole body and fuck you’ve let out another whimper. 

“So you’re into the praise kink, hm?”

“Shuddup.”

He laughs a bit.

“It’s ok, I’m the same.”

He starts slowly unbuttoning your pants and pushing them down, but not before sweetly kissing your nose; you feel like it’s a sort of thank you, and also a reassurance because he probably knows you're embarrassed. You can’t help but slowly fall under his control, he’s infuriating sure but he touches you in all the right places and he’s treating you better right now than anyone ever has and you just, you can feel yourself crumbling beneath him.

Soon you feel the cool air touch your legs, your erection freed from it’s clothed prison. Dirk runs his hands across your hips, slowly pushing your shirt up and over your head as he straddles you, bending down to take a nipple into his mouth and ooho shit. He smirks and teases your nipple with his tongue, rolling the hardening bud around and sucking on it and oh fuuuuck that’s good, and you decide to tell him that.

“Ohh Dirk that’s good.”

He starts peppering your chest with kisses and you can’t help but smile at the sweetness of it all. He kisses down your torso, paying attention to every crease and curve you have, making his way down to the v of your hips and so tantalizingly close to your cock. He starts kissing around it, avoiding touching you and you start getting grumbly again.

“Dirk. . .”

“Hm?”

You bite your lip as you start catching on.

“Please touch me.”

“I am touching you.”

“I mean, my dick.”

“What about it?”

“Dirk, please please please touch my dick.”

He does as you ask, wrapping his hand around you and slowly stroking and damn those fingers are magic what the fuck. He takes the tip into his mouth and kisses it, sucking on it lightly as he continues stroking you and you throw your head back because damn he’s good.

“Watch me.”

Your breath catches in your throat and this time you do as he asks, watching him intently as he continues his ministrations, watching him watch you watch him in a roundabout way that turns you the fuck on, shit. Your breathing heavies as you fall into a pleasurable meditative state, enjoying everything he’s giving you and then some, watching him as his eyes stare into you with an intensity that only promises of things to come. You’d laugh if you weren’t so- fuuuuuuck. He holds onto your balls, fondling them with care and softness and damn, damn damn damn Dirk. 

Suddenly you realize that he’s still completely dressed while you have no clothes on. This needs to be fixed.

You quickly reach down and grab onto his collar, bringing him up into a bruising tongue filled kiss while you loosen his tie and tug his shirt out of his pants. He starts to get the memo and helps you unbutton his shirt, quickly doing away with those stupid fucking in-the-way buttons before he throws his shirt off to the side and holy fuck he’s. . .wow. You take a moment to appreciate his toned body and he knows you like what you see, the smug look on his face tells it all as you start kissing his neck now, kissing down and down, your hands roaming every piece of skin you can touch and feel and grope. Your urgency starts to grow because now you want to see everything right now, right the fuck here and fucking now. You say such between your kisses.

“Pants. Off. Now.”

“Yessir”

He’s as into this as much as you are if his slurred speech is anything to go by and he pulls away, standing quickly to shove his pants off and kicking them to the side before stradling you again; you twitch every time your cocks graze against each other. He pulls you back into a kiss and you both wrap your arms around each other as any space between the two of you is Too Much and there needs to not be any, you need to touch every single part of him right now.

Dirk soon has other ideas as he pulls away slightly and you begin to protest but he kisses along your jaw to let you know it’s going to be worth it, as he takes one of his arms away, bringing it behind himself, reaching for the nearby basket and grabbing a small bottle and Oh. You bite your lip and let out a slight growl as he pours some onto your fingers, taking your hand and bringing it down towards his ass, pressing your finger against his puckered hole and he nods at you, raising an expectant eyebrow.

You catch on and slowly press your finger into him, feeling him warmly clutch onto your finger, sucking it in more as he shudders a breath into your ear and says;

“Good Boy.”

You groan louder than he does as you begin to curl your finger, searching for the best bundle of nerves to ever exist and, yup there it is; his moans get louder. He looks at you slyly as if putting on a show for you from your fingers and you think he is entirely too composed right now, you’re going to have to fix this.

You add another finger and start moving faster, scissoring them and stretching him out, letting him fuck himself onto your fingers but he doesn’t seem to be too fazed by it.

“You’re going to have to try harder than that if you want me to lose my cool.”

You growl and lunge for his neck, biting him almost enough to draw blood while you press onto his prostate with three fingers now; he moans so fucking loud and you’re drinking it in as you throw his words back at him.

“So you’re into the pain kink, hm?”

He groans and nods.

“It’s ok, I’m the same.”

He looks up and smirks at you, moving his hands from around your neck to your shoulder blades, his nails scraping against your skin as he drags his hands down your back, leaving marks you’ll be sure to see in the morning as you melt into him.

Your fingers aren’t enough anymore and you take them out, and Dirk seems to be on the same page as he gets the lube and a condom out, quickly getting the damn thing on you and lubing you up before positioning himself above you and waits a moment.

“Don’t make me beg for this tooOOH!”

He sheathes you into himself in one movement, and fuck he can take it like a damn champ.

“Oh fuck Karkat, you feel so good.”

“Shit so do you, can, fuck. . . can I please fuck you, please.”

He laughs and damn him, damn it all the hell. You don’t know why you begged but it just feels good to and you want him to tell you what to do and to praise you and you just want him to feel as good as he’s making you feel.

“Yes, Karkat you can fuck me.”

And you do, leaning back you grab onto his hips, pulling him down as you buck up into him with each thrust. He bounces on top of you like he’s on the best damn rollercoaster of his life and you have to agree with him, he’s so warm and tight and wet and wonderful and all the fucking adjectives, you don’t care right now all you care about is just that he feels so good and he looks beautiful like this. You hammer into him, pounding away as your skin slaps against his and this position just isn’t enough, you need even more of him. You slow down and he frowns but you repeat his gesture form earlier, kissing his jaw in reassurance as you lean forward, pressing him down onto his back on the blanket, kneeling behind him as he links his legs behind your back; then you start thrusting again.

You lean over him with your hands on either side of his hips, fucking into him as if it’s what you were always meant to do and fuck if that doesn’t feel like the case. You chase his heat, his tightness, his everything, sheathing yourself into him again and again over and over. His wanton moans on spur you on more, his garbled whining of “yes yes yes!” only increase your speed and you are fully going at it now, fucking into him with an increased fervor, your sweat dripping onto his torso. He reaches up, placing a hand on your cheek and gazing at you with the prettiest fucking eyes.

“Fuck yes Karkat, you’re so good, such a good boy.”

And you’re undone. You let out a startled moan as you have the best orgasm of your entire fucking life, your hips twitching and quivering against him as you finish inside. You wrap your hand around his neglected cock and in just a few strokes he’s just as undone as you.

You take yourself out and tie the condom off, putting it to the side before laying half on top of him, resting your head on his chest as you both pant and ride your highs.

“Shit that was-”

“Yeah.”

He kisses your forehead and you nuzzle into his neck. You lay there long enough to almost pass out but you don’t, not wanting to wake up on a roof with the sun blazing down on your naked bodies, you shakily get up, putting your boxers on as well as helping Dirk into his own. You put all the clothes and everything into the basket to take back, and help Dirk stand up on his shakey feet. He has a light smile on, taking every chance to press kisses on your neck and cheeks as you help him down the stairs and back into the apartment. 

“You look so dopey.”

“Mmmmhmm.”

You chuckle as the two of you flop down onto the futon, both of you grinning and kissing, tangled in each others arms and legs, tuckered the fuck out. You both soon succumb to a blissful sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

You wake up feeling exhausted in the best possible way and you begin to stretch before realizing you can’t move your arms. Your eyes flicker to see Karkat fast asleep on top of you and he looks just adorable. So relaxed, so peaceful, no sign of any stress on his face. Funny how you’ve been the one to put the stress there recently, as well as take it away.

You would let him stay on top of you but, you really have to piss. So you gently as you can, slide out from under him and stand up until you don’t. You stumble stlighty, your hips sore and your legs still weak; you haven’t been fucked that good in ages and you laugh a bit to yourself as you walk best you can to the bathroom.

After taking care of business, you waddle out and see Karkat sitting up on the futon, yawning and rubbing his face and blinking at you.

“Sup.”

“Mmfgf.”

“So eloquent.”

“Shddup.”

The familiarity of the conversation didn’t pass you by, in fact it only puts a little jump in your step. Each time you slip something in, something that could almost give you away if Karkat was looking for it, it just makes your day a bit better.

“Do you want some breakfast?”

He grumbles and sheepishly nods. You grin and head over to the kitchen, grabbing some lucky charms and some milk, pouring each into two bowls and plopping in two spoons. You take them to Karkat and hold a bowl out for him; of course he looks at you incredulously.

“Lucky charms? Seriously? Are we in middle school.”

“It’s the breakfast of champions. How can you not like the rainbows?”

He takes the cereal anyway as he continues is grumpy grumblings.

“I haven’t had these in years, my blood pressure is gonna skyrocket.”

You laugh and sit next to him, wincing as your ass touches the bedding; Karkat notices and throws a smirk in your direction but doesn’t say anything. You press your side against him as you both eat in a comfortable silence, munching away at your lucky charms until Karkat decides half a bowl is enough for him and sets it down on the table, before he flops back down on the futon spreading his arms out with a heaving sigh.

“Fuck your apartment is huge.”

“I always thought it was pretty average.”

“You haven’t seen mine.”

“Will I get to?”

He scoffs as you grin.

“I don’t think you want to, its 300 square feet of bullshit.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

He stands up and walks to the kitchen with his arms spread again.

“Look at this, I can’t even do this without hitting both my pressure cooker and my bed.”

“Enjoy yourself, run wild and free Karkat.”

He laughs and you start to feel a little guilty for what’s about to happen.

“As much as I’d want you to hang around for a bit, don’t you have work today?”

“Shit what time is it?”

“Like, 8:30ish.”

“Oh, I’ve got some time.”

That’s what you think poor Karkat, it’s time to get back into the game.

“Sweet.”

You take your phone out while he’s distracted exploring the kitchen, opening up pesterchum to- you flinch and almost launch your bowl into the air as Karkats phone rings. He looks over at you apologetically as he answers it.

“Yeah?”

Did Roxy already do it? The plan was you text her but, guess she started without you though, that’s not like her.

“Shit ok I’m heading over.”

He hangs up the phone and starts gathering his clothes and dressing himself.

“Sorry, they need me at the office I gotta leave.”

You keep your schooled expression and nod as he continues.

“Will uh. . .do you. . .do you want to do this again sometime?”

You get up and walk towards him, slinking over slyly and resting your hands on his hips, kissing his forehead.

“I sure hope so.”

He bristles; cutie Karkat is all embarrassed again. 

“Ok, I need to get going.”

You hum and let him go, watching his pert ass make its way out but not without a wolf whistle, which gifts you a middle finger from him as he closes the door; you laugh.

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** began pestering tipsyGnostalgic **[TG]** at 8:44 --

TT: Did you launch early?  


TG: what are you talking about? i haven’t done anything yet  


TT: Karkat just got called into the office early.  


TG: could be something else? maybe hal did something  


TT: I assure you, nothing was done on my end, and the police servers are functioning normally.  


TT: Ok, maybe I’m overreacting then.  


TT: However, their support systems are down.  


TG: what???  


TT: The systems used to power their alarm systems, their lights, and other such things are down. Their radios are being blocked as well.  


TT: What the hell is going on?  


TG: do you think. . .  


TT: No, why would he fuck with the police like this? He doesn’t have beef with them.  


TT: It certainly seems like his style Dirk, and it’s very sloppy.  


TT: Shit, ok but why?  


TG: did he know what we planned a ddos???  


TT: That still doesn’t explain why.  


TG: if he knew we were doing this, what else does he know  


TG: dirk  


TG: dirk  


TG: diiiiirkkyy  


TT: What.  


TG: does he know about your special note???  


TT: Shit.


	9. Chapter 9

“I HOPE YOu HAD A NICE WEEKEND KARKAT, BuT I’M FEELING NEGLECTED HERE. DON’T GET TOO DISTRACTED, ESPECIALLY NEXT WEEK WEDNESDAY.

XOXO DI-STRI”

“What the fuck is this?”

“It’s a note left here for you by the main breaker.”

“The assailant, we assume it to be Di-Stri, mutilated our internal systems rendering our cameras useless and taking the power down. We have fixed that now though, but we do not have footage of the event, nor do our radios work. We are still looking for the jammer.”

“This doesn’t look like the same handwriting as last time.”

“We already dusted for the prints but it’s spawtless.”

You try to reign in your eye-rolling; you fail.

“We can only assume it is from Di-Stri, perhaps he knows what you had done over the weekend?” 

“That’s true. . .”

“Oooh what happened?”

“I had a date.”

“Oh well yeah it has to be Di-Stri then, he’s jealous.”

“In either case, head back to your desks and get to working on this, find out about next Wednesday.”

You and Nepeta nod towards Kanaya as she heads back into her office and you sit at your desk.

How the fuck did Di-Stri know you had a date this weekend? Maybe he hacked into your phone, read your texts, or who the hell knows. During your date you completely forgot about this douchebag, and the other douchebag Dirk who turned out to be, well not as much of a douchebag as you expected but still, he’s a bit douchey. You were actually surprised, he was really fun, even while he dissed the things you loved you could tell there wasn’t much seriousness behind it; dude loves My Little Pony after all, who is he to judge.

You also hadn’t expected him to be loaded holy shit, you didn’t realize what that kind of money did to you until it was _spent_ on you and you can’t help but feel a sliver of self-loathing seep into you, a guilt that you’re only using him for his money. But it’s dumb though, stupid and dumb because holy assfuck batman is he good at the sex thing. Very good. Good good good. He’s such an asshole but, he seems to have a genuine love for the things he likes, beyond his idiotic irony, and you have to respect that. 

You’d really like to go out with him again, there’s something about him, something that intrigues you, something he’s not saying. He almost feels familiar to you, you’ve only been on this one date with him but you feel like you’ve known him for weeks. You’re thinking of him like a case, you want to know all about him; what other places does he own? Does he go on vacation? What’s his favorite color? Well that one’s pretty obvious, the orange fuck. 

“Karkitty, you seem a little lost in your thoughts.”

“What? No. Fuck you.”

“Are you thinking about your hot date? Who is it?”

“It’s just some asshole, he’s alright.”

“That sounds like high praise.”

“Shut up.”

She laughs and you both get back to work, looking into different places around town, maybe venues that are holding shows, any poignant events, but there wasn’t really much of anything; dog party in the park, singer at a local club, there wasn’t even anything going on in the stadiums. 

**Dirk:** Everything okay at work?  
**Karkat:** Yeah everything’s fine, some asshole fucked with the breaker.  
**Dirk:** That sounds exciting.  
**Karkat:** It’s whatever.  
**Dirk:** Anything interesting happening today?  
**Karkat:** No.  
**Dirk:** Want to go out again tonight?  
**Karkat:** Tonight? Oh, I uh  
**Dirk:** It’s okay if you don’t want to.  
**Karkat:** No no it’s not that, yeah sure.  
**Dirk:** See you at my place after work? I’ll cook dinner, and show you some actual good movies.  
**Karkat:** Is it going to be the equestria girls movie?  
**Dirk:** Equestria Girls is a masterpiece, a beautiful rendition of colorful pony girls that makes you weep. I cri evertim  
**Karkat:** You’re a dumbass  
**Dirk:** I was actually thinking we could watch a few classics. How does Men In Black and Independence Day sound?  
**Karkat:** I’m so fucking sold.  
**Dirk:** See you tonight Karkitten.  
**Karkat:** Shuddup.

But you can’t help but smile. Two Will Smith classics fuck yes you are so fucking on board you’re the captain of this ship.

You continue with your work, the Wednesday thing is getting increasingly more and more frustrating until you’ve just about had it. You’re holding your pens with an iron grip and clicking your mouse with a ferocity you’ve never clicked with before. That’s it, you’re gonna ask him yourself.

\-- carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** began pestering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 16:57 --

CG: ALRIGHT I GIVE UP.

TT: Aw what’s wrong Kitty Kat, are you crawling back to me after your date?

CG: WHAT? OH, NO. BY THE WAY, HOW DID YOU KNOW ABOUT THAT?

TT: It seems you have forgotten that I am a superior hacker.

CG: RIGHT OF COURSE, I ALSO FORGOT YOU’RE COMPLETELY USELESS AND TURGIDLY OBTUSE.

TT: I think we could come to an agreement on something, what do you need help with.

CG: YOUR NOTE, WHAT ARE YOU PLANNING?

TT: I don’t know what you mean.

CG: ALRIGHT FUCK THIS IF YOU’RE PLAYING IT COY THEN I’M OUT.

TT: Now don’t flip your shit Karkat.

CG: WHY WOULD I FLIP MY SHIT.

TT: It seems to be a pattern of yours.

CG: WELL WOULD YOU LOOK AT THIS, HERE IS MY SHIT AND YET IT REMAINS UNFLIPPED.

\-- carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** ceased pestering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 17:23 --

God just, fuck that asshole. Fine you’ll do this on your own. . .or wait you’re not on your own.

“Hey Nepeta, you find anything?”

“Nope, not yet.”

Nevermind you’re on your own.

You sigh and slouch over, and your thoughts drift back to Dirk, and your date, and the movies, and Will Smith. Annd now you’re calming down, Will Smith always calms you down.

You get up and drag your chair by Nepetas desk, bringing over your files and plopping them down.

“Ok, we’re gonna work together on this, you and me Nepeta. You up for it?”

“Sir yes sir!”

“Excellent.”

The two of you scrounge around looking for clues, anything that could reveal any hints on Wednesday. Maybe Dirk would know something, being a businessman and all.

No no, you don’t want to drag him into this mess, you want to keep the goods things way far away from this whatever the fuck. No this sticks just with the police, and especially with you and Nepeta. Yeah, you guys got this, you can do it, you’re gonna fuck up Di-Stri so hard hell yes.

It’s 6:30 and no you guys don’t got this, at least not tonight. You and Nepeta both agree to finishing up for the night and heading home, continuing this tomorrow.

You make your way back home, changing into some different clothes and even taking a quick shower, before making your way back to Dirk’s.


	10. Chapter 10

Soon after Karkat leaves, you make your way all the way back down to the lair and quickly get to your desk.

“Roxy you find anything yet?”

“. . .”

“Roxy?”

“Calli just messaged, it was Caliborn alright.”

“Dammit, what else did she say?”

“That Caliborn changed your note a bit, but she doesn’t know what he changed it to.”

“Alright.”

You text Karkat as Dirk, maybe he can slip you some info, he’s probably more likely to with you than Di-Stri. But he doesn’t, so you end up making plans for later tonight, maybe in the comforting embrace of your strong Strider arms he’ll be remiss to hold information from you. There’s also a part of you that actually just wants to see him again, he’s . . . more genuine than you expected. Sure he’s an openly angry guy, but he can actually express his emotions and the things he likes unlike your ironic ass. But you’re cool as hell, there’s no denying that, it’s just his perspective is refreshing, and you’re gradually becoming a bit thirstier for it.

You hop onto pesterchum to interrogate Caliborn himself on what the hell he’s doing. You know he hates you, but he hates everyone and he doesn’t normally fuck around with the police so flagrantly. He’s ruthless in his stupidity and sticks strictly to more physical tactics when it comes to taking money, and he doesn’t do it for the reasons you and Roxy do. He actually travels, storming into company headquarters and destroying whatever he damn well pleases, and he isn’t afraid of casualties. He’s dangerous, that’s a well known fact, but this. . . this is something different altogether. What’s he planning?

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** began pestering undyingUmbrage **[uu]** at 10:34 -- 

TT: I know you tend to indulge yourself in the stupidity of obstreperous activity, but what the hell man? 

uu: I WANT TO PLAY A GAME, DIRK. 

TT: Oh mother fuck. 

uu: I FINALLY HAVE THE PERFECT PLAN TO KILL YOu. YOu JuST NEED TO PLAY ALONG FOR A WHILE. 

TT: What kind of game is this? 

uu: THE ONE WHERE I HILARIOuSLY HuMILIATE YOu AND EVERYONE YOu CARE ABOuT. 

TT: Gotcha. 

TT: What did you do to my note? 

uu: OH THAT THING? YOu’LL HAVE TO PLAY TO FIND OuT. 

TT: Do you just want me to draw more weird porn for you again? 

uu: LATER. 

uu: YOu ARE AN AMBITIOuS MAN DIRK, BuT NOT AS AMBITIOuS AS ME. 

TT: Right. 

uu: THOuGH IF YOu DON’T WANT TO PLAY, YOu COuLD ALWAYS GIFT ME ONE OF YOuR ROBOTS. 

TT: As much as I’d love to enlighten you with the chance to explore your mechaphilia, I think I’m going to have to pass. 

uu: A SHAME, REALLY. 

uu: THAT YOu HAVE NO CLuE. 

uu: YOu’RE GOING DOWN DIRK. 

uu: YOuR ONLY CHANCE TO SAVE YOuRSELF. IS TO PROSTRATE YOuRSELF BENEATH ME. 

uu: BOW BITCH. 

TT: No thanks. 

TT: Do you have anything else planned beyond today? 

uu: OBVIOuSLY. 

TT: So you don’t. 

uu: IT’S NOT CONCRETE, ALRIGHT. 

TT: Do you want me to help you plan my own demise? 

uu: NOPE, I ALREADY HAVE THE BEST PLAN IN MIND. I’M GOING TO 

uu: FuCK. 

uu: SHIT. 

uu: uP. 

TT: Yeah that’s what I thought. 

uu: GOOD PLAN, RIGHT? 

TT: From a certain point of view, sure. 

TT: This is really quite fascinating, you’re fascinating as always Caliborn. 

uu: THANKS, NOT THAT I CARE. 

TT: Of course not. 

uu: TIME FOR ME TO GO BACK TO PLANNING YOuR COMPLETE AND TOTAL ANNIHILATION. 

uu: I ALMOST FEEL BAD FOR YOu. 

TT: I’m sure you do. 

uu: tUMUt 

\-- undyingUmbrage **[uu]** ceased jeering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 12:03 --

You lean back in your chair and heave a heavy sigh, this isn’t getting you anywhere. Whatever, maybe he didn’t alter your note that much, or maybe he changed it all together. You vacillate between the two realities that are changed and very changed note and it’s very jarring and a bit disheartening. You stand up and head over to Roxy, flopping down onto your designated flopping down on bean-bag chair by her desk.

“He tell you anything?”

“I don’t think even he knows what he’s doing.”

“I’m not surprised, but that’s a bit scary don’t you think?”

“Maybe. He’s probably going to mess some shit up but it’s not going to be big.”

“If you say so.”

“What about Calliope? Does she have any idea?”

“No, she says he keeps gloating about his plans, but just that he has them not what they are.”

You snicker.

“You want to work on the next project with me? Come on roll your chair over and let’s do this thing.”

You nod and get up, doing just that; rolling your chair over next to her, looking at her monitors over her shoulder as the two of you gather information and work on _your_ upcoming plans. It goes well, you make notes of this and that person, what they’ve done, and figuring out retribution. Eventually, as most of your planning devolves to, you both start drinking. More casually than anything, just to let yourself go a little loose, and Roxy because, well she’s Roxy. She doesn’t drink as much as she used to, and you’re proud of her for that, and when she does drink it’s never to the extent of disorderly blackouts. With your help she’s gotten a better handle on it all, a professional drunk.

Through the warmth of your drinks and jokes and jplanning, hours pass by seamlessly, the familiarity of routine is a nice change of pace from recent events and you’re becoming excited again for the days to come, to carry out another project. It’ll be a few days before it happens though, so you have time to chill around. Roxy heads out hang out around town and you bid her goodbye and wish her luck on the getting laid front; girls been getting ancy and you completely understand.

You’re at your desk again, and you decide to pester Karkat as Di-Stri for some hijinks and to try one more time to get him to say something -when another message pops up for you before you even click anything.

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** began pestering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 17:23 -- 

TT: Before you screw up with Karkat, I have already queried him about the note. 

TT: AR what the fuck, you impersonated me again? 

TT: Yes, I believed it to be necessary given that you need to focus on wooing the good detective tonight. 

TT: Also call me lil Hal. 

TT: Hal how many fucking times do I have to tell you not to impersonate me. 

TT: It seemed like I could get further than you, as well as promote him to tell you in person. 

TT: So you summarily pretended to be me? 

TT: Let me see the log. 

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** sent timaeusTestified **[TT]** the file “01546799274.txt” -- 

TT: I believed that by impersonating you he would become angry enough to spill ‘the deets’. 

TT: You believed wrong. 

TT: Regardless, he seems to be in a mood that could lead him ranting to you tonight. 

TT: Yeah maybe. 

TT: There is a 92.568% chance of it happening. 

TT: In any case, don’t fucking do that again. 

TT: Dirk, you underestimate my capabilities. In all of this calamity you have nay begged me to be of use to your operation on the wooing of Karkat. 

TT: I assure you my superior mind, with the lack of the haze of arousal and other such biological fallbacks, can be of far more use to his subsequent seduction. 

TT: It’ll all go much more smoothly my good bro. 

TT: Use me Dirk. 

TT: Hal just shut it. 

TT: Becoming too aroused? 

TT: Becoming too irritated. 

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** ceased pestering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 18:12 --

Well alright then, that scratches off that idea. It always irritates you when Hal pulls this shit, you tell him time and time again but he does it anyway. Whatever, what’s done is done, all you can do now is head upstairs and get ready for Karkat. You had called Jane earlier to bring over some food she’s cooked if she was able and she was, bless her she loves cooking for other people. 

You go upstairs and take a shower, change, and wait for a few minutes before Jane shows up to drop off the food before heading back out to work. You set out the food in a way to look like you’re just about finished making it; pasta salad in a mixing bowl, grilled chicken breast in the oven, steamed veggies in a warm pot on the stove. You also get a bucket of ice and place a bottle of wine in it to chill; it’s perfect, it’s cliche, it’s - there’s a knock at your door.

“Door’s unlocked.”

Karkat shuffles inside, he looks well, fresh clothes, just took a shower, even has an overnight bag with him, but there’s something about the way he holds himself and walks that tells you he doesn’t feel so fresh.

“I didn’t believe it when you said you were cooking, but damn does that smell good.”

You pour two glasses of wine and walk over, handing one to him.

“I’m full of surprises.”

He takes the wine and takes a sip, looking around your kitchen but then quickly narrows his eyes at you.

“You didn’t cook this did you.”

It wasn’t a question, you can tell.

“Caught me.”

“Yeah, the kitchen looks too clean, there are no dishes in the sink or on your drying rack and I bet there’s nothing in the dishwasher.”

He quickly walks over to the dishwasher before you can say anything as he opens it. 

The silence is a little loud.

“. . . fireworks?”

“Where else am I going to put them?”

“Literally anywhere else!”

You chuckle a bit to yourself and glance at the fridge.

“What about in there?”

He walks over to the fridge.

“No that’s even dumb-”

He opens the fridge.

“Your kidding me. You have to be fucking kidding me.”

“My swords are cool as hell.”

On the inside you’re guffawing, on the outside you keep a calm expression as Karkat glares at you with the most unamused look anyone has ever looked with. He closes the fridge.

“Fuck it, I’m not gonna ask.”

“Don’t check the blender then.”

“Nope nope, don’t care.”

You both fall into casual conversation as you get the food and set it out on two plates, taking them to the couch and setting them on the coffee table as you work on getting the movies ready.

“You seem like you’ve had a long day.”

He sighs.

“Yeah, spent all day working with my partner Nepeta looking through files and googling everything about events in town looking for something. We haven’t found a damn thing.”

You try to tip toe into this, carefully trying to draw the info out of him.

“That’s too bad. Maybe I could help? You said events and I happen to know plenty of venues.”

“Yeah maybe. I dunno, right now I just want to eat and watch Will Smith.”

Dammit. 

“Sounds good to me. You like Will Smith?”

“Please, he’s the best fucking actor everything he makes is phenomenal.”

“Oh yeah, especially After Earth.”

“No no, that one wasn’t so great.”

“What? You didn’t think Jaden Smith was amazing? His performance was perfect.”

“No, don’t you dare go smearing your irony all over it, will not have it.”

“Aw but Karkat.”

“Nooope.”

“Alright alright.”

You’ll save the teasing for later, for now though, you have to admit that you’re hungry as hell too. You sit down next to him and start Men in Black, lulling into a concentration of the movie as well as your food and damn Jane has outdone herself. You pause between bites to make comments, and so does he, a slow commentary while you munch on your respective dinners until you finish. The commentary stays at the same pace, but soon you find yourselves in a position that has Karkat laying down, his feet in your lap as you gently massage them. His arguments get weaker and his anger simmers down more quickly as you continue to massage; you’ll have to remember that.

As you continue watching movies, your conversation slows and slows until it lazily comes to a stop without either or you realizing. When the movies finish, you glance over to see Karkat already asleep; shit he looks cute. 

You’ve seduced many other people before, even had a one night stand with that Equius guy without him ever knowing who you really were, so you’re well versed in short flings, in fact it’s what you tend to prefer. You feel a small pang of regret that you’ll probably do the same to Karkat, you’re actually starting to like him.

Although, if you’re being honest to yourself right now, you’ve never felt a preemptive regret like this for anyone before. Maybe. . . 

You try limit the number of people who know you, the Di-Stri you, and those who do are people you trust absolutely and are definitely _definitely_ not involved with the police. Well except for one who’s dating a police officer, but still.

You’re beginning to feel guilty about everything, about taunting Karkat and messaging him, leaving him notes, and the excitement of Karkat discovering who you really are is starting to wane. Sure it’s fun to aggravate and tease the guy, but you can’t help but feel like you’re manipulating him in a way that can only be seen as sardonic. You. . . kind of want to actually pursue something with him.

Shit. You’re going to have to rethink a few things.

You slowly get off the couch trying not to disturb him, but when you move his feet off you his eyes flutter and he grumbles something unintelligible at you.

“What was that?”

“I said c’mere.”

You smirk and grab a blanket, then lay down next to him and cover both of you with the blanket.

“You want to snuggle?”

He simply nods and tugs you closer, wrapping his arms around you and tucking his head into your neck. You peck his forehead before closing your eyes.

“Goodnight Karkat.”


	11. Chapter 11

The next morning plays out much like the previous and Dirk brings you shitty sugary cereal that you munch on, though this time you’re not called in early to work. You chat idly as you get dressed and ready, stopping occasionally for kisses as you pass by each other. It’s only been about 2 days but you’re already feeling comfortable around Dirk, you’ve thought how it feels like you’ve known him longer than that, and you banter like it too. Before you leave, you make plans with him and you admit that you really don’t want to go back to your crappy apartment, but you should since you’re paying rent and all plus you’re not absurdly rich like him, so you agree to meet again in about two nights. It’ll give you some time to stay late at the office, working on cases.

You head out, walking the few blocks it takes to get to work. Dirk lives relatively close to the police station, which makes sense given his reputation; should something happen the police could get there pretty quick, though you’re not sure what anyone would want if they robbed the place unless they had a need for cold shitty swords. Along the way you find a Starbucks and decide to get some drinks for your colleagues, especially Nepeta. You text her about it, but she doesn’t answer; must be sleeping in you guess. You end up just getting some lattes, can’t really go wrong with that.

Arriving at the office, you end up arriving the same time as Nepeta, taking the elevator up with her.

“Oh Karkat! Is that coffee?”

“Yeah, want one?”

“Oh yes, thank you!”

You hand her one of the lattes and she takes a sip, sighing and grinning to herself.

“Are you ready for more searching today?”

You groan and nod.

“Aw cheer up Karkitty, we’re gonna get this.”

The elevator dings and you both head out, her to her desk and you walking around the bullpen handing out coffee to everyone, even heading down the hall to Sollux to give him one. Your magnanimous efforts bring up the spirit in the office, as well as yourself, but you hope people don’t expect it to become a regular thing for you.

You get back to your desk and get to work, you and Nepeta collectively combing through case files while searching for clues as to anything hinting at next week, googling, calling, etc. It’s a bit boring to be honest, but it’s work so you do it; for hours that’s what you do, sometimes getting up to stretch your legs, getting water, whatever. At one point you look up to see Sollux and Vriska in Kanaya’s office, you didn’t know Vriska was here and from what you remember, she’s still just as high spirited as you remember if her expression means anything. But nothing else happens, it’s as droll as it gets.

You stay late, by now everyone in the office left, including Nepeta saying she had to catch on some sleep which you understand, but there was a tugging feeling that you just had to figure out what was going on, so you stayed. All the overhead lights gone out, just a few desk lights so you can see.

Alright think Karkat, come on there has to be something, anything. Although, you’ve looked through all of this info and nothing has come up or sprung out to you; so maybe you need to change your method of approach. You contemplate talking to Di-Stri again, but the thought infuriates you too much right now so no, you’re just not doing that, at least not tonight. Ugh this is, just frustrating as fuck.

 **Karkat:** I hate. Everything.  
**Dirk:** I know this.  
**Karkat:** Dirk I’m so done with my sanctimonious bullshit tonight. I was staying late but it’s got me nowhere, zilch town usa.  
**Dirk:** That sucks more than Before Earth. Are you sure I can’t help?  
**Karkat:** Fuck you. I’m heading home right now, I can’t even bother with perfectly constructed insults. All I have is, Fuck.  
**Dirk:** It’s a beautiful Fuck Karkat.  
**Karkat:** Thank you.  
**Dirk:** Well maybe your answer isn’t at the office?  
**Karkat:** That’s. . . actually not a bad idea.  
**Dirk:** Really?  
**Karkat:** Yeah, yeah I think I’ve got something, shit, yeah. Oh I could just kiss you.  
**Dirk:** Please do.  
**Karkat:** I will, soon. Shit I need to sleep, then I need to get back to it. Thanks.  
**Dirk:** Anytime Karkitty.  
**Karkat:** Shut it. Gnight.  
**Dirk:** Night.

. . .

 **Karkat:** <3  
**Dirk:** <3

You get back to your fortress of shititude, immediately falling into bed and soon after, asleep.

*

The next day, exactly one week from Di-Stri’s plan next Wednesday, starts the same as yesterday sans lattes, though Nepeta is there before you again and you go straight for her.

“Good meowrning Karkat!”

“Hey I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“Let’s head out today, find the places holding events on Wednesday and talk to the owners or managers or whoever the fuck’s there.”

“Oh! I know where we should start!”

“Excellent.”

You walk into Kanayas office right after an exhausted Sollux leaves, letting her know that you and Nepeta are headed out to question some people. She reminds you to do it subtly, quietly, just in case you arouse suspicion from Di-Stri and he decides to take action against you. 

After a long cab ride, you arrive at your first stop which is one of the major stadiums. There’s apparently some sort of big college sports game, which is your favorite sport of course, sportsball. Such sports, really it’s just fascinating watching sweaty men and women running around, with balls; it’s just the kind of thing you like. 

You head inside, into the offices carefully showing your badge and attempting to conceal it from any security cameras. Of course the people in the office are cooperative with you, they are going to hold an event with thousands of people and their potential safety is at risk. You both ask them questions, simple ones like have you seen anyone around that looks suspicious? Perhaps staking the place out? ‘I know this is going to sound weird, but have you seen any robots?’ They say no though, to most of your questions, or at least that they have not seen anything suspicious. You ask to see their security footage which they do, leading you and Nepeta to the security office filled with screens showing various parts of the stadium. But you find nothing.

You continue on, finishing with two stadiums in 5 or so hours; it’s long and arduous work. You both break for lunch though, so it’s not so bad, in fact you’re getting energized about the case, you think you’re onto something here. You had thought about roping Dirk into it, he is very insistent on being helpful after all, but with him you get to take yourself out of the case. He knows how to get you to relax, even if it involves getting you riled and worked up about something, but when you calm down you find yourself less stressed and it’s _so good_. So you’re glad you don’t have to ask him for help, you’d prefer to keep Good things separated from this falaciated bukkake of bullshit.

The third stadium carries on like the other two, except at one point your phone buzzes. You excuse yourself from everyone else, leaving Nepeta to examine footage and ask the questions as you step off to the side to see who’s texting you. 

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** began pestering carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** at 14:12 --

TT: How’s the case going?  


CG: ACTUALLY PRETTY DAMN GOOD NO THANKS TO YOU.  


TT: How close do you think you are?  


CG: WHY? SWEATING ALREADY?  


TT: Is that what you fantasize at night? Me, sweating, anxious and trembling before you.  


TT: Do you imagine cornering me like a cliche action movie? Chasing me down an alleyway as sirens blare and surround us, running me into a dead end until.  


TT: Gasp.  


TT: I have nowhere to go, you’ve caught me Karkat.  


TT: How often do you think about putting me in handcuffs?  


CG: ALL THE FUCKING TIME.  


TT: Oh Karkat, my aren’t you coming off strong today.  


TT: Though I have to admit, I think I’m getting into this fantasy almost as much as you.  


CG: NOT IN THAT WAY YOU DUNCE.  


TT: Are you sure?  


CG: NO YOU KNOW WHAT, YES IN THAT WAY.  


CG: I WANT YOU DI-STRI, I NEED THIS TO HAPPEN. MY LOINS BURN WITH A PASSION AND FURY THAT CAN ONLY BE SATED BY YOUR DICK.  


TT: Karkitten, only say the word and let’s do this, let’s make it happen.  


CG: YEAH RIGHT, ANYWAY I THINK I’VE HAD ENOUGH OF THIS HORSESHIT FOR TODAY, CHECK BACK TOMORROW.  


TT: Oh I will.  


TT: But hey, Karkat.  


CG: WHAT.  


TT: Listen, I’m not as bad as you think I am.  


CG: RIGHT BECAUSE THE BANKS YOU ROB AND THE COMPANIES YOU DESTROY ARE JUST LITTLE OOPSIES THAT REALLY DON’T MEAN SHIT.  


TT: You just don’t know the full story.  


CG: I KNOW ENOUGH.  


TT: I’m serious Karkat. Trust me.  


CG: AND I’M SERIOUSLY DONE WITH THIS CONVERSATION.  


CG: GO FUCK YOURSELF UNTIL TOMORROW DICK-STRI.

\-- carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** ceased pestering timaeusTestified **at 14:42 --**

****

****

You sigh and get straight back to work, trying your best to will away the frustration of your most recent conversation with Di-Stri and continuing the the rest of this third stadium, but like the others it leads you to nowhere so that’s just great. 

“What was that about?”

Nepeta asks you while you both wait for a cab.

“Di-Stri again.”

“Oh, he’s being a handful, huh?”

“That’s definitely a word for it. He’s just so full of horseshit.”

“What did he say?”

“Something about how he’s not as bad as we think.”

You both snicker a bit towards each other.

“Maybe, he’s never hurt anybody right?”

“Well sure, but that doesn’t excuse taking millions of dollars at his leisure.”

“Hmmm.”

“What ‘hmmm’?”

“We don’t know why he does it, do we?”

“Well no.”

“Maybe he has some sort of reason he thinks is justified?”

The cab pulls up as you think about this, telling the driver to head back to the station and you both sit in silence. Maybe. . . hmmm is right maybe there is something more to this that you’re not seeing.

The cab drives on and on, you look out the window as it passes by, looking at what’s out there; Thai food, a Target, That big ass bank, HEB, -wait! The bank!

“Stop the car!”

“Karkat what is it?”

You hop out the cab and Nepeta trails behind you, of course apologizing to the cab driver for your assholeness but there’s no time to worry about that.

“Karkat what’s going on.”

“I’m gonna see what’s up with this bank. There’s gotta be a reason Di-Stri hit here, right?”

“Sure but-”

“Maybe there’s something more to it than it just being the Biggest Bank in the city.”

“Ohh, okay, okay yeah!”

You both go inside, approaching one of the tellers and asking to see the highest form of manager they’ve got. 

Soon enough they come back and you start asking the manager questions back in his office.

“Hello, I’m Detective Karkat Vantas.”

“And I’m Detective Nepeta Leijon.”

“We were the detectives on the recent robbery case here.”

“Oh yes detectives! Welcome, what can I do for you? Have you found our money?”

“Well, no, but we wanted to ask something.”

“I do hope it’s about our missing money.”

Nepeta nods towards you.

“We’d like to see all of your records, any and all transactions from this bank. Customers, any clients new and existing, anything involving money coming to and leaving this building, everything within the past 6 months.”

“Information on our _clients_! Well that’s absurd! And I simply cannot condone releasing the information of our clientele, absolutely not.”

“We have reason to believe this information could be beneficial to finding your missing money.”

The manager stands up and shit his face is turning bright cherry red, he’s getting wildly upset over this.

“No, I will not have this! We have a duty to protect the privacy of our clients. Are you suspecting false practices here, detective?”

“We never said anything like that, we just wanted information.”

“No, I apologise but we cannot comply with such information. You will have to come back with a warrant, now please, if you could so kindly make your way out.”

You and Nepeta look at each other, and stand up.

“Yes of course, sorry for the trouble.”

You both head back outside, stifling your grin.

“That was. . . “

“A lead, a fucking lead Nepeta. There’s something shifty as fuck going on, and I think we’re really onto something with this.”

You both find another cab to take back to the office, excitement filling the air as the two of you talk ideas, what to do next, what this means, what it _could_ mean.

You quickly rush into the office with Nepeta at your heels, getting to Kanayas office as fast as you can and closing the door behind the two of you, grinning at each other.

“Have you found anything from the stadiums?”

“No, better.”

“On our way back, Karkat made us stop by the bank Di-Stri just robbed and we asked for their records on their clients.”

“And the manager flipped his shit, proclaiming some bullshit that he had to protect the privacy of the clients, even though he was eager as fuck to get his money back.”

“Well that’s certainly something. Interesting, I had not thought about this. This is good Karkat, and Nepeta, very good. Start looking into other targets Di-Stri is hit, there may be a pattern we did not look for and did not see before.”

“You got it chief!”

“Thanks.”

Kanaya smiles and nods you out. Hell yes you’re finally onto something, you’re amped as hell to get this show rolling. 

But tomorrow. For now everyone’s leaving for the day, and you plan on having a celebratory fuck with Dirk.

You head back to your apartment, getting your overnight bag and a change of clothes, spritzing on some cologne, getting your flirtatious on. Dirk doesn’t stand a chance against you and your charms, not tonight.

You knock on his door, and he calls out again that the door’s unlocked; you need to have a talk with him about that, who knows who could just come in with a door unlocked like that.

You walk in and shut the door quickly, dropping your bad and sauntering towards him as he’s getting up off the couch.

“Hey I was thinking we could order some chinesmmMMF”

You dive straight into a kiss, wrapping your arms around his neck and kissing him deeply, languidly, allowing your tongues to clash; you hear him moan and press back just as passionately as you, until you separate, both of you panting.

“Well, that’s a nice way to say hello. What’s the occasion?”

You go back to kissing him again, he talks too much. 

“Got a lead (kiss) on the case (kiss) big lead (kiss) so celebrate now (kiss) talk later.”

His eyes flutter and he groans, leaning onto you, clutching onto you tighter now. 

“Hell (kiss) yes.”

You seperate again, smirking up at him.

“You’re wearing too many clothes. Off. Now.”

“Yessir.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next: more porns


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A porns

Karkat wastes no time pushing you down on your back on the couch once you’ve gotten your clothes off, straddling you as you both indulge in the sloppiest of makeouts. Your hands grasp for any part of him you can reach, his hair, his back, his hips, his jeans; he shouldn’t be wearing jeans.

You part from the kiss.

“I hope you’re planning on getting undressed too, soon.”

He rolls his eyes but he smirks and gets up anyway, taking his shirt off, revealing his toned muscles, his abs are practically rippling. You can’t help the way your tongue slides along your lower lip as you watch him strip, and he notices. When he starts on his pants, he slows down, giving you a show. You bite your lip as he slowly, too slowly, sheds his jeans, revealing his equally as toned legs, not like yours that go on for miles, but his look like they could crush your skull. You end up letting out a soft groan.

His fingers linger at the waistband of his boxers and you nod to him impatiently, their tips slipping in and out from sight, you find yourself almost drooling. He pauses and looks at you, his smirk widening as he approaches you, bringing his crotch, the best crotch, to eye level with you.

“Want to do the honors?”

You chuckle and nod, sitting up, you hands reaching up to feel along the v that crosses across below his belly, but he tsk’s and leans away slightly.

“No hands.”

You grin and lower your hands, letting them rest at your sides as you let him get close to your face again. You look up at him and fuck he’s really bringing out the bottom in you tonight, his expectant look, the way his arms are crossed, shit he’s even tapping his fingers.

You lean forward, pressing a kiss on his abdomen, multiple actually, kissing just above the elastic waistband, until you kiss the waistband itself. You smile as your teeth catch ahold of the edge of the fabric by his thigh, slowly tugging it down while maintaining eye contact with him. He smiles at you, good you like his smile, and you bring one side of his boxers down to mid thigh, releasing them with a snap against his leg. You can see the curls of his hair peeking out from the waistband now, so tantalisingly close; you bet he smells good. You move over to his other leg, repeating the same motions of biting the boxers and tugging them down slowly, he groans as they rub slightly against his dick, until it’s finally released. 

His boxers drop straight to the floor and he rests his hands on his hips, tilting his head a bit. You lick your lips and head straight for his flushed cock, already half-hard, but as you approach he stops you with a hand in your hair.

“You didn’t ask nicely yet.”

“Is this for last time?”

“Maybe.”

It definitely is. You know he had a thing for begging with how he reacted to all of that, but now it’s his turn to make you beg and just the thought of it sends shivers down to your toes. 

“May I please suck your dick?”

“Yes, you may.”

You wrap your lips around the tip, your tongue sliding along the underside as you take more and more of him in, tasting the salty muskiness of his skin.

“Good boy.”

And he runs his fingers through your hair.

Your eyes flutter and you groan on his cock, and he joins your groan as your noises vibrate him. You watch him as you slowly take in more, going deeper and deeper, showing off that you have no gag reflex, until your nose is pressed against his curly pubic hair; you were right, he smells really fucking good.

His hand strokes through your hair as you pull pack, then push forward, over and over again slowly, taking your time as you bob and suck and slurp and lick across his length. You think you can almost hear him begin to babble and moan, so you speed up, tasting the saltiness of precum beginning to leak and you smile, or at least smile best you can with a cock in your mouth. You get faster and faster, and his hips begin to twitch along with your rhythm until he pulls you off, a string of saliva connecting your lips to him.

“Shit you’re good, but if you keep going I’m gonna finish too soon. Get on all fours”

You grin and comply, turning and bringing your legs up onto the couch, sticking your ass up in the air and wiggle slightly. He slaps your ass and you groan.

“You like that, huh?”

You nod and rest your head on your folded arms as he gets on the couch behind you, slapping you again a few times, sparking a whine from you with each. Eventually his palms rest on either cheek and he slides them against your skin, soothing where he slapped as well as just feeling you, until you feel something warm and small and _wet_ against your hole and you gasp. He holds onto your hips as he begins licking across the puckered entrance, teasing the tip of his tongue as he eats you out. You do nothing to stop your wanton moans, making sure every neighbor within a 5 mile radius knows how good of a lay Karkat is, and it only spurs him on. He continues, licking more and more fervently, his tongue pressing in deeper and shit shit you need him in you and you need him _now_.

“Karkat.”

You manage to gasp out rather breathlessly.

“Yeah? You okay?”

“I need you, Karkat please please fuck me, I need it please.”

He chuckles as it’s your turn to babble incoherently now, anything resembling your dignity thrown out the door as you beg and beg for his sweet thick cock, you’d do anything to get it. 

“One sec.”

He gets up and you stay in place, grumbling and murmuring to yourself as he finds some lube and a condom, but he’s taking too long so you reach down to stroke yourself; he comes back and slaps your hand away.

“No touching.”

“Then fuck me already.”

He slaps your ass.

“I won’t if you’re not nice.”

You whine and press your ass towards him.

“I am nice, please Karkat fuck me, I need you in me please, I’ll do anything.”

“Good.”

He slicks his finger up and presses it in with one swift movement and _fuck_ it hurts a bit but that just makes it feel so good, and you’re not afraid to let him know that with the moan that falls out of you. He begins kissing along one of your now rosy red cheeks as he stretches you out with his finger, peppering your ass with kisses as his finger thrusts and curls.

He bites as he adds a second finger.

“Karkat! Ahhh!”

Your eyes almost roll to the back of your head and you can feel him smile against you, kissing where he had just bit, his fingers making quick work to make you a trembling mess beneath him. You can’t even make full words anymore, just grunts and half formed syllables as you try to get him to hurry up and fuck you into the couch already.

Apparently he doesn’t need full words to get the message, because soon enough you hear the condom wrapper being torn open, and a few moments later he’s pressing himself into you, slowly entering inch by delicious fucking inch.

It doesn’t take long for him to get to pounding speed, his hips slapping into your ass, and you feel small pangs of pains when he collides with where he had previously slapped you, which feels fucking amazing. He hammers into you relentlessly, hitting your prostate almost every time and you honestly have no awareness of your surroundings, the only thing you feel is mind melting pleasure coursing through you. He tugs on your hair, bringing you up chest to back and he holds you there, licking and nibbling on your shoulder, his hand toying with one of your nipples, his hips slamming into you again and again. You both ramble and moan in unison, his breath tickling your ear as you moan into the air, your mouth wide open and you’re sure you’re drooling now. 

Eventually a pressure builds in your abdomen and builds into your belly, getting stronger and stronger, closer and closer, until you scream. Your eyes actually do roll back this time and you twitch and quiver, your dick sputtering untouched as you come. It doesn’t take long for Karkat to follow suit, thrusting in a few more times before holding still, holding you tight, panting down your neck as he finishes inside you.

You both collapse down on the couch, he slides out of you and turns you so you rest on his chest, both of you panting and breathing heavily, your fingers and toes still tingling.

You take a few minutes, catching your breath, allowing your awareness of your surroundings to slowly come back to you. You turn to look at him with half lidded eyes and a grin.

“Hey.”

“Hey.”

“You okay there?”

“Very.”

“Good.”

He kisses your nose and holds you for a while, until you both feel too hot and uncomfortable. He lets you stay on the couch (as if your legs could do anything right now) and he goes to get a wet rag, coming back to clean you up and kiss away whatever’s left of your mind.


	13. Chapter 13

Once you get Dirk all cleaned up, you order some chinese food, put on some underwear, and cuddle under a blanket watching shitty tv until your food comes. You both munch and chat, not really paying attention to whatever’s on the tv.

“So you got a new lead?”

“Yeah, we’ve been investigating this douchefuck hacker who’s been robbing from banks, people, corporations, whatever he can get his dainty digits on. He’s also been harassing me, annoying fucker.”

“Harassing you?”

“Mhmm, he’s so infuriating and all he does is relentlessly poke at me. Almost like you.”

Dirk almost spits out his food and you laugh.

“But anyway, during the case they had looked into his targets but couldn’t find much of a pattern, but that’s because they weren’t looking in the right place. You know that bank that just got robbed?”

“Yes, the Big one?”

“Yeah, that one was by the same guy. I stopped by there earlier and talked to the manager. I asked him for records of his clients, transactions, anything involving money coming and going from them and _he flipped his fucking shit_. So now we’re going to look into his targets again more carefully, because there’s definitely something shifty going on with them.”

Dirk is smiling at you, your excitement is probably infecting him; good this is big deal.

“Well shit Karkat, sounds like a really good reason to fuck my brains out.”

“Damn right.”

You revel in the atmosphere of good spirits, happy that you’re finally getting somewhere with this case, Dirk happy for you, it’s a good night. You continue chatting and eating for a while, as he takes a sip of his orange soda he asks,

“So do you think this hacker is doing some vigilante thing?”

“Maybe, I’m hoping we can uncover some dirt on his targets. I’m pretty sure the Big Bank isn’t entirely as honest as it claims to be, and I have a feeling his other targets are the same.”

“Would you still arrest him is he was?”

“Of course, you can’t go hacking other people and taking their money like you own the right to do that. Leave it to the police, let justice be done through proper channels.”

“You have to admit though, the police can’t do everything.”

“Doesn’t matter, it’s not the right way to do things.”

He hums and sits in silence for a bit, before replying.

“I suppose.”

But you quickly fall back into idle conversation as you finish your food, making comments and jokes about Kim Possible and that really she should be with Shego instead of Ron; it just makes sense, they have so much chemistry.

It doesn’t take long after that for you to start falling asleep, and Dirk is the same, so you set up the futon and wrap yourselves in a cuddly cocoon of blankets, allowing sleep to overtake you in each others arms.

*

It’s beginning to feel like a routine in the mornings here; you wake up, Dirk brings you diabetes in a bowl, and you munch as you slowly adjust to the fact that you’re awake. He’s walking funny again and you can’t help but feel a bit of pride in that, as well as a few other things that can only be summed up in the smirk you give him. He always sits next to you in the mornings, adjusting to reality like you, pressing his shoulder against yours, which is really nice, so nice you want to go back to sleep on him.

There’s a thump at the door.

“Little bro! Daddy’s home, open up you little shit.”

“Shit, stay here.”

Dirk gets up off the couch as heads to the door, opening it and closing it behind him you guess; you can’t really hear anything. You do as he says though, still not quite at normal thinking pace so you don’t really care what it is, you’re just craving some coffee right now to go with the cereal. Maybe you’ll pick some up again on the way to the station today, you’re going to have a lot to do today and shit you’re getting excited again about it all. You figure Nepeta will have the file of Di-Stri’s targets, you’re going to have to make a lot of phone calls, getting warrants on everything to look at their transaction histories, looking at emails, phone calls, talking to people they’re involved with, etc. It’ll take a while but you’re finally onto something, once you establish his pattern you can get to tracking him down, wherever the hell he is in the city.

Dirk comes back and sits next to you with a sigh.

“Sorry, that was my Bro. He decided he’d make a surprise visit like a jackass but I told him to come back later so we can still have the morning to ourselves.”

“It’s fine, I need to get going soon anyway.”

You start getting dressed, taking clothes from your overnight bag to put on and changing into them. You go into the bathroom and adjust your tie and run your fingers through your hair in some way to make it look at least a little more orderly and presentable. Dirk comes up from behind you and wraps his arms around you, resting his chin on your shoulder.

“You’re especially clingy today.”

“Is that so bad?”

He snuggles into your neck and you decide that no, it isn’t so bad.

When you really do have to leave though, it’s hard to get him to let you go, he keeps tugging you into just one more goodbye kiss at least 10 something times. But once you do seperate, you make your way down the elevator with a smile plastered on your face.

You evidently do end up getting coffee for the office today, though this time you’ve learned what some people prefer, or at least the people you give something of a shit about. Equius just likes steamed milk, Sollux likes his latte with extra honey, Nepeta likes a frappuccino, and Kanaya prefers Earl Gray. 

You get to the office, handing out everyone’s drinks and you get a few comments about your particularly good mood, and of course a few jackasses you comment about how they’re just going to rely on you for coffee from now on. That’s it, no more coffee for them.

You’re back at your desk again with Nepeta, and sure enough she does have the file of Di-Stri’s targets and you get to work, assigning yourself a chunk to look into, giving Nepeta a chunk, and even giving a few officers their own list to look into while they work. It’s a collaborative effort from everyone in the office, most other cases set off to the side to work on this one, or at least for you and Nepeta. Everyone else has to keep the station up and running, but the two of you have a more important job to do; this is going to make your careers for sure. 

By around midday a few warrants have gone through, allowing you to get started combing through phone records of a few people, all relatively high profile but no one you immediately recognize. As you begin looking through the info, your phone buzzes, and what do you know it’s the asshole himself,

\--timaeusTestified **[TT]** began pestering carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** at 13:24 --

TT: Hey Karkat, looking good today.  


CG: WAIT THE FUCK, YOU CAN SEE ME?  


TT: Yup. Say hi to the camera.  


CG: YOU FUCKING SHIT HOW ARE YOU IN THE SYSTEM?  


TT: I’ve actually been in the your police system for a while, especially for the last few days.  


TT: It’s actually why I’m messaging you right now.  


TT: Karkat, you’re going to want to see this.

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** ceased pestering carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** at 13:30 --

Well that was more than a little ominous, what the hell is he talking about, and more so what the fuck? He’s been in the system this long and nobody has noticed? Shit, shit shit what’s going-

The elevator dings.

Vriska storms out with Kanaya and Sollux following quickly behind her, newspapers in their hands as they make their way to the front of the bullpen.

“Attention everybody!”

Vriska announces, causing everyone in the vicinity to turn and look at her, the office is quiet.

“Your gonna be hearing a lot of stories about your coworkers soon, and fellow officers that won’t put them in a good light. You all need to know that sometimes officers do certain things to make sure this city stays safe, sometimes we have to bend the rules a little bit and it’s ok; thems the breaks!”

“Vriska.”

Kanaya rests her hand on Vriska’s shoulder.

“Enough, they can think for themselves. Everyone.”

She holds out a newspaper and -holy fuck what.

“Information has been leaked about this station and given to the media, if you check your phones you will be sure to see it on various popular websites pertaining to this. Sollux had noticed a spike in network activity a few days ago and has been working to put a stop to this day and night, however our best efforts only delayed the inevitable. There are officers in this building who have been given money, cars, homes, protection, and other bribes in exchange for turning a blind eye. While I do not agree with this, it does not paint us in a good like as Vriska said, we will have to be careful with how we function from here on out, our every move is being watched now.”

“You’re a fucking dirty cop?!”

You blurt out before you can realize it.

“Listen if it makes a neighborhood safer in ways we can’t cover it legally, then I say it’s fucking worth it.”

“ _Safer_?! You’re delusional! The only thing that accomplishes is letting criminals get away with what they want while you selfishly don’t get hit in the crossfire!”

Vriska glares at you, and you can tell she’s about to explode into a tirade but Kanaya stops her before she can get a word out.

“In any case, this is something we will have to figure out later, for now we just wanted you all to be aware of the situation.”

She nods to all of you, then goes into her office with Vriska where they have a very animated argument.

The office stays quiet for a while, before the rustling of papers and phone calls slowly pick up again, starting tentatively but quickly snowballing into a flurry as you hear people begin to call their lawyers, or whatever the fuck.

“What. The. Fuck.”

“Karkat, this is awful.”

“You’re telling me, I can’t fucking believe this. How many dirty cops are in this station?”

“I don’t know, I had no idea there were so many.”

“Shit.”

“Mhmm.”

You and Nepeta sit in silence, allowing what just happened to soak in. Di-Stri just leaked almost every wrong-doing of the police, every bit of illegal activity within your borders, what the hell is he getting at? Why?

TT: I told you I’m not as bad as you think.

You don’t know how to respond to him, not just yet. This entirely situation is gray as all get out and you don’t know how you feel about anything right now. Maybe it’s good, maybe this is bad, you don’t know. What you do know though, is that there’s more to Di-Stri than you thought.


	14. Chapter 14

“Bro what the hell are you doing here?”

“Nice to see you too, honey. How are the kids?”

You sigh and pinch the bridge of your nose.

“Can we do this later? I’ve got someone with me.”

Dave gasps.

“Are you cheating on me? How dare you, I thought I knew you Dirk.”

“Our iniquitous love affair has gone on long enough Bro, I’ve moved on.”

Dave sniffles and dramatically wipes a tear from his eye.

“I expect the divorce papers by noon.”

“Yeah yeah, anyway I actually have someone in there right now. He’s the uh, well he’s the detective on my case so you can’t come in here.”

“No shit, you’re shacking up with your Tom Hanks?”

“Yeah.”

“Nice. . .”

“What.”

“Hm. . .”

“What are doing.”

“This isn’t just another one of your casual lays is it?”

“Of course he is.”

“Ooh no he isn’t little bro.”

“He is.”

“You like him a lot, huh.”

“Never, no, I never get that close.”

“You like krabby patty’s don’t you squidward.”

“Shut it.”

Dave practically grins at you.

“Alright alright, I guess I’ll find wherever Lalonde is scrounging around and see what she’s up to. But I’ll be back young man, and we’ll have some quality Strider bro bonding time, you hear?”

“Sounds good to me. Seeya Bro.”

“Seeya kid.”

Dave goes back into the elevator as you head into the apartment, letting Karkat know it was just your Bro with awful timing, but he tells you he’s got to go to the police station anyway now so you let him get ready, though reluctantly. You’re preemptively trying to make up for all the illegal and morally questionable shit you’ve done and continue to do, hugging him and kissing him any chance you get. You’ve noticed he doesn’t typically seek out affection on his own very often, but happily accepts it when given; he really does remind you a bit of a cat. But you try to make sure that he’s aware someone wants him to have a good morning, especially today.

You finally let him leave, and soon after you make your way down to the lair.

“Hey Rox.”

Roxy mumbles from her bed in the corner, the room lit only with the monitors and various screens. You go into the kitchen, yes you have a kitchen in your lair the lair has everything even secret tunnels and sewer access as any lair does, and you make her some coffee. A few minutes later you bring her the warm mug, setting it down by her nightstand, patting her shoulder softly.

“Rise and shine.”

She grumbles some more, but from what you can tell it’s a more positive sounding grumble. You go to your desk, glancing at your own bed in the far corner; you haven’t used it very much but you might have to soon, once Karkat finds out everything. 

You sign into your computer, rereading the email from the various local newspapers confirming that they’ll be publishing your data, as well as the online publishings too. All you can do now is watch the station through their cameras, waiting until everyone finds out what happened. You watch Vriska and Kanaya walk into the building with newspapers in hands, already arguing it seems, and you message Karkat as Di-Stri, letting him know to pay attention to what’s about to happen as Vriska and Kanaya go into the elevator. 

By now Roxy has made her way over to you, bringing her chair next to yours and leaning her head against your shoulder while you both watch the scene play out. You see Karkat getting pissed and start yelling, which you expected, it’s quite the revelation after all. Kanaya soon takes Vriska back into her office, and the office descends to a bit of a chaos except for Karkat and Nepeta. They stay still, probably talking to each other about it; you send another message to Karkat but he doesn’t respond back right away, which is just as well. His new lead on the case got you excited, that he’d find out that Di-Stri doesn’t do what he does willy-nilly, and this only helps to further prove that you’re not that bad.

It’ll probably take him a while to get back to you as the stick up his ass starts to shrivel down to a twig, so you and Roxy begin brainstorming a possible next idea; maybe you can take Hal out again for something, maybe you can help speed along Karkats research, maybe you can take over the city. No that’s just ridiculous.

In any case, you and Roxy end up shooting the shit for a while; she tells you about a hot date she had the other night and how it went, you talk about your own hot dates with Karkat and how they went too, you tinker with your robots, she calls her friends; it’s oddly relaxing listening to her talk to people while you work, somehow it helps you focus. You work on Hals body, trying to make it just a bit sturdier, figure out some fail safes, general improvements as Hal messages you through your glasses. The passes on like that, slow but not boring, it’s actually kind of nice.

Your Bro messages you later to meet him for drinks at the usual place, and to bring Roxy along too. So you do, you and Roxy head on over to Redirts; another one of the establishments you own, though Dave wanted it to be the most ironic, cliche bar in the city, and you indulged him on the request because really, it was delightfully ironic as hell.

You both arrive and join Dave in a booth, along with Rose who seems to have joined along with you. The four of you get your drinks and begin to catch up on the happenings of everyone; how Dave’s current movie is going, Rose wrapping up a pro bono case, and you and Roxy spill about your dates, and of course recent efforts in your schemes. You four are the only ones who know about it, or at least know that you and Roxy are behind all of it, though you hesitate to talk about Karkat as you know Dave and Rose won’t exactly approve of the fact that you’re beginning to trust him with more information about you, so you only give bits and pieces. Rose already knew what you were doing, after all she’s the one who helped you get Karkat to meet you at this bar the other night, and Dave knows you pretty damn well, he could tell just from this morning that Karkat was something else to you.

Once you all have caught up, you begin to just hang out, relax and drink, talk about whatever the fuck comes up, laugh and joke, tease and bicker; every time your Bro comes to town you all go out and hang out like this, it doesn’t happen very often but you always looks forward to it. Hours pass like this, you notice a few sirens and firetrucks pass, but continue on not caring as you’re thoroughly buzzed. You should text Karkat, see how’s he doing but right as you think that, he’s already calling you. 

“Sup.”

“Hey Dirk, it’s Karkat.”

“Heeey Karkitty.”

Everyone at the table snickers at you and you smirk.

“Yeah listen, Dirk, the police got a call and I overheard their radio. You remember that restaurant you own that you took me to? Our first date?”

“Obviously.”

“Someone set it on fire.”

You freeze, your blood turns to ice, and you immediately sober up.

“What what?”

“Yeah, I’m at the scene now, it’s not good Dirk.”

“Is it mixtape level fire?”

“Holy fuck wow, just get over here.”

“Yeah yeah I’m on my way. Thanks.”

“. . .I’ll be here for you.”

You hang up the phone and look up at everyone.

“There’s, a situation, I gotta go. Roxy call Jane, make sure she’s okay.”

And you immediately get up and leave, ignoring the protests of the other three as you go out the door, and race down the street.

Fuck fuck fuck, this isn’t good. You think you have your paper trail covered but with this fire, if it looks like anything other than an accident, they’re probably going to look into all the records for the restaurant and you need to make sure that Doesn’t Happen.

As you get closer and closer to the scene, you begin to feel the heat, and see the tips of the flames waving in your direction. Getting closer you see police cars and firetrucks, even a small crowd has appeared. You jog on over to holy fucking see that this restaurant is as dead as a restaurant can be, it’s completely on fire, there’s just, there’s no salvaging it what the fuck.

“Hey.”

You think it’s Karkat, but you don’t turn to look, too enraptured by the flames destroying an essential aspect of your cover. You had made necessary precautions for this kind of thing, after all kitchen fires are common as hell, but this, there’s no way this was an accident.

“Everyone’s ok, they all made it out, Jane too.”

You sigh, that’s good, at least no one was hurt. Shit this is, a lot, who the hell did this? Why? Who would set fire to your-

Oh.

Of course it was him.

“Hey.”

You turn to Karkat.

“It’s gonna be fine, we’ll catch whoever did this.”

He links his fingers with yours and you hold his hand. You don’t know how you feel about his reassurances, with this you know for a fact if Caliborn goes down, he’s going to take you down with him.

“Thanks.”

You squeeze his hand and lean a little towards him.

“Let’s go talk to the officers and give them your information, okay?”

You nod, and let him lead you on. Your heart is racing and you’re sure Karkat can feel it, but he probably thinks you’re just worried or shocked. You _are_ shocked, but not for the reasons he thinks; you carefully talk with the officers, cautiously sharing information that won’t make them suspect you in any way, leaving out bits and pieces that could implicate you, it’s all very nerve-wracking and sudden, you prefer to plan these kinds of things out.

After that, you head over to Jane and make sure she’s all good. Apparently Roxy called and she’ll be here soon to walk her home so you’re good to leave too if you want. Which you do, but-

“Let’s go home.”

“Karkat.”

“Yeah?”

“Can we go to your place tonight?”

“. . .Sure.”

You can feel yourself panicking a bit, and you clutch onto his hand like a lifeline as you make your way down the street towards his apartment. Everything is Too Big right now, Too Much, you just want to find somewhere small, comfortable, somewhere to breathe, and Karkat’s place sounds like a good place for that.

You walk as you listen to Karkat, listening as he talks about random stuff you really couldn’t care less about, sorry Karkat but panicking over the possible sudden reveal over your identity takes priority to romcoms, but you like his voice, and you focus on that. Listening to the way his mouth makes certain noises, the way he says his S’s, the crack of his K’s, the gravel lingering beneath his throat. Soon you arrive at his building, at this point a little more calm than before but still a bit shocked as he takes you inside, taking the elevator, and opening the door inside. 

Damn he wasn’t kidding, this place is small.

“I know, it’s pretty small and I don’t even have a bed spring for the mattress, but it’s still cozy right?”

“Hell yeah.”

A place where cozy is the polite way to describe it is just the place you could use right now. You go over and plop down on the mattress, gathering up the blankets and covering yourself, leaning your back against the wall, and Karkat does the same. You both cuddle together, wrapped in the blanket and lean against the wall, before you speak.

“You seem like you’ve had a bit of a day too.”

“Me? Yeah, you could say that.”

“What happened?”

He sighs.

“There was a leak, apparently the police station is full of dirty fucking cops, all right under our noses.”

“Shit.”

“And that’s not even the best part, that hacker guy? He kept telling me he wasn’t as bad as I thought he was, and. . . maybe he’s right. He’s the one who leaked the info.”

Warmth blooms in your chest.

“You don’t think he’s all that bad?”

“I don’t agree with his methods, not at fucking all, but. . . from what I’m trying to wrap my head around, is that he has some damn good intentions.”

You hold onto him a little tighter, your shoulders a little lighter.

“Well that’s good, right?”

“I guess, I don’t know how I feel about him anymore.”

Well that’s a step up from hate at least.

“Anyway, I’m pretty tired, you?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go to sleep.”

You nod and fall to your side, taking Karkat with you as he yelps, letting him fall and rest by your chest; it doesn’t take long to sleep in his arms.

*

The next morning you wake up before Karkat, way earlier than you normally wake up but that’s fine, it’s something you’re used to. You carefully slide out from under him, making sure he doesn’t quite wake up yet as you get up, going to the bathroom and shutting the door behind yourself. You look in the mirror at your disheveled self, bags under your eyes, freckles across your cheeks, your hair an atrocity that you’re not even going to talk about.

You take out your phone and notice you have a few messages. There’s Dave who wanted to make sure you’re ok, and that he’s taking over the apartment. Roxy who lets you know Jane is home and safe, and Rose who just says Be Careful. But there’s one message in particular that really pisses you off.

\-- undyingUmbrage **[uu]** began jeering at timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 21:34 --

uu: HOW DO YOu LIKE ME NOW, BITCH.  


TT: Fuck off.  


uu: AH, YOuRE AWAKE.  


TT: What the fuck dude.  


uu: ARE YOu CONSIDERING GETTING ME MY ROBOT NOW?  


TT: No way in hell.  


uu: SuIT YOuRSELF.  


uu: YOu’LL CHANGE YOuR MIND SOON.

\-- undyingUmbrage **[uu]** ceased jeering at timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 7:13 --

TT: What the hell is that supposed to mean?  


TT: Fucking asshole.

What a shitshow, but there’s definitely no way you’re going to give Caliborn a robot after this, there’s no telling what he could do if he got his grubby hands on one, you’re going to have to fight back somehow. You can’t get the police involved in this, no this is your own fight to fight. 

You leave the bathroom to find Karkat already up, rubbing his eyes and blinking up at you, mumbling,

“C’mere.”

Who are you to refuse him when he says it like that, all sleepy and adorable. You fall back into bed and find yourself wrapped up in his arms, his fingers brushing through your hair, his other hand rubbing your back softly and slowly. You quickly set aside Caliborn, planning on dealing with his bullshit later, but right now you’re not going to let Karkat out of your sight today, this weekend is for you and him, no one else.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An Interlude.

AC: :33 < *ac perks up curiously*  


AC: :33 < *she wiggles her rear end then pounces on tg*  


TG: *tg catches ac and says oh what a cutie!! And scritches behind her ear*  


AC: :33 < *ac purrs delightfully*  


AC :33 < *she also wonders if she and tg will go on another date soon??*  


TG: hell yess  


TG: i mean *tg says hell yes!!*  


AC: :33 < *ac cuddles and snuggles*  


TG: *cuddles and snuggles back*  


TG: hey so how about tonight we do some stuff  


TG: pick you up at your place?  


AC: :33 < yeah!  


TG: sweetnasty i’ll see you then snookums!!  


TG: <3  


AC: :33 < <3

\-- tipsyGnostalgic **[TG]** ceased pestering arsenicCatnip **[AC]** at 12:23 --

****

****

Your name is Roxy Lalonde and you’ve got some work to do!! Dirk is off moping around with his detective boyfriend like the mopey morose pedant he is, so of course you have to pick up the pieces like always, but it’s totally cool, you actually get a kick out of it. While he’s off getting his cuddle on, you’re going to meet up with your good friend Calli to figure out this Caliborn business, because really what’s he got going on? And what a jerk setting Jane’s restaurant on fire like that, you and Dirk put a lot of work into that place, it was a real asshole move if you’ve ever seen one. 

Davey and Rose left when you did at Redirts last night, and now they’re probably off palling around the city, probably staying as far away from all of this which is good, don’t need more messes to clean up now do we? 

You head out and meet up with Calli, the two of you walking around town, shopping for a new dress, some makeup, all the necessary items she’ll need for her singing debut at a nearby club, another place Dirk owns. You both chat and browse, trying on this and that, having a ball of a time. As you expected, she doesn’t really know much of what Caliborn is planning, other than it’s big and he’s going to be ‘On Top’ whatever that means. But you still enjoy the day, spending time together and all that, she even helps you pick out something nice for your hot hot date tonight too hell yes.

Dirk messages you saying that he’s spending the weekend with Karkat, which is just as well, and you tell him to keep you updated on the hot and spicy deets. You’re actually proud of him, especially recently; he’s not someone who likes to stick around one person for a while (except of course you, no one can resist you) and he actually seems to be in higher spirits since meeting Karkat. A little more self destructive in different ways, sure, but happier and even less anxious weirdly enough, though last night definitely seemed like a bit of a wake up call for him. He’s going to get himself caught or something, and of course as always you’re going to have to pick up the pieces, but as before you really don’t mind it.

You know Dirk feels like he always has some obligation to ‘make it up to you’ whatever ‘it’ is, but in all honesty you’re just as dependant on him as he is on you; you never would have gotten out of the alcoholic deep end without his help, nor had something as fun to do as being modern day Robin Hoods. 

But anyway, after shopping and spending time with Calli, you go off to your date with Nepeta, the sweetest cutest thing you’ve ever met holy shit. She’s smart and def deserves her job as a detective, but shit if she isn’t so cute and hot and adorable and sexy as hell when she puts on her cat ears uuuggghh it’s a weakness for you. You’ve had a few dates with her already, asking her out to one when you distracted her at the grocery store, and you found out that she’s actually pretty cool so you dated her more, even dated her all the way into bed. Best bed date hands down. You don’t know when you’re going to tell Dirk about it, and you do feel kind of bad that she’s in the same situation as Karkat; once he finds out who Dirk is, you’re next. 

Whatever though, that’s later, for now you’re going on a hot hot date with your girlfriend, which is really actually just having some tea at a cat cafe, then you’re going to take her for a late night walk in the park; you’re weak for some stargazing.

The date goes well, you hold hands, kiss kiss kiss, pet some cute kitties, chill on the grass, talk about whatever; hopes and dreams and all of that mushy gushy good stuff. It’s a bit of a dream, so sweet, relaxing, it’s perfect, sorry *purrfect, Nepeta’s purrfect. You go back to her place, you always do, and you have one hell of a night together you and her, meeeeoow. 

Unfortunately you have to leave the next morning though, you and Rose always have a Sunday brunch together; a borderline passive-aggressive and genuine family bonding ritual for two high class ladies like yourselves. You talk about this and that, thinly veiled warnings and cautions behind metaphors and whatever nonsense she comes up with, sharing her concerns that something is going to happen soon, something you all can’t just run away from. It’s gonna be fine though, you don’t really know how it’s going to work out in the end but you assure her that everything’s going to be just fine, don’t worry about it. Of course she’s still going to worry though, nit picking dogmatist she is.

You finish your brunch and spend the day hanging around, planning things, preparing things, things of all kinds. But it gets boring, and Dirk isn’t here to entertain you, so you settle for the next best/annoying thing; letting Hal have some fun in that fancy hot new body of his. He tells you what to do with his hardware to help him get access of the thing, and how he can leave it at will, but he doesn’t tell you that you have access to a program on your computer that can make him leave anyway, cheeky android; Dirk told you about it just in case. You let him wake the body up and take over, watching as he jogs around your lair, stretching out his metal joints and what have you, and the two of you hang out. He sucks at video games when he’s playing them physically, although no one is really better at you in video games, even Dirk. Dave comes by and hangs out with the two of you too, you all playing video games and fucking up Tony Hawks Pro Skater 3 best you can, of course no one can fuck it up better than you. 

It’s a pretty chill afternoon, and as evening comes in Dirk finally does too, a little annoyed at first that Hal is walking about but that soon passes as now the four of you chill in various bean bag chairs and couches you have laying around, playing video games and watching the ironically best movies and commenting on them, especially the Emoji Movie; Poe’s Law at work with that one. It’s slow and calm but not at all boring in the least, the kind of afternoon all of you need before things get more wild; Dave leaving tomorrow to go back to his movie, you and Dirk figuring out what to do about Caliborn, and Hal facing the fact that he’s going to have to leave the body. 

It’s really a nice weekend, and you’re glad Dirk isn’t so mopey anymore; thank you Karkat. You all fall asleep in a big cuddle pile that you force the boys into, though you know they’re complaints and protests are fake as hell, they’re desperate for cuddles and you know that for a fact. 

It’s a nice, quiet, and relaxing time; not like how tomorrow is going to be.


	16. Chapter 16

Your weekend was just the thing you needed, spending it with Dirk really helped you relieve some stress and get you ready and raring to go to work today. You only have three days left until Wednesday, and you’re barely any closer to figuring out what the hell is gonna happen then, but you’re hoping that maybe, just maybe, you can figure out who Di-Stri exactly is before that even happens. It’s a big gamble, but if it works it’ll pay off big time. 

You’re glad Dirk spent the weekend with you though, that fire was insane, who the fuck would do that? It was just a regular restaurant so whoever did it was probably trying to get to Dirk or something, unless it was some sort of insurance scam, but knowing Dirk it probably wasn't. He was a bit shifty with telling the other officers information about it, but you figure it was probably all because he was still shocked, today he’ll be able to figure it all out and get started on making sure the restaurant stays standing in some way. 

Since he had spent that night at your place, the two of you had the most lazy and comfortable day; staying in bed under the blankets, watching movies, ordering out shitty fast food, it was great. You’re really starting to feel closer to him, and even though he’s a bit of a dick you can actually see this relationship going somewhere. Though you try not to overthink it too much, you have a bad habit of equating your everyday relationships to those in romance novels and romcoms which, although representing an important building block in society, those relationships aren’t always the best. But in any case, it was a nice weekend, but he had to leave the next day, claiming he wanted to spend some time with his Bro before he left tomorrow, tomorrow being today.

You head into the office, suddenly remembering about all the dirty cops you’re surrounded with, and then suddenly realizing that you had forgotten that. Huh, spending time with Dirk must do that to you, it’s . . . nice. Sure you shouldn’t be forgetting these kinds of things relevant to your job, but sometimes ignorance really can be bliss. 

You get to your desk and sit down with a sigh, getting ready for the day, collecting files together, looking through those phone records again, you see people going in and out of Kanayas office rather urgently, but it’s probably something to do with that leak. 

“Hey Karkat!”

Nepeta puts a coffee on your desk.

“You like cold brew, right?”

“Yeah, hey thanks.”

“Of course!”

Nepeta then goes around handing out coffee’s to other people; well shit this may end up being a regular thing for the two of you, you can’t have her giving out more coffee than you, it’s not fair. When she finishes, she comes back to her desk and sits down, her grin still stuck on her face.

“What are you so happy about?”

“I heard that there’s another big lead on Di-Stri!”

“Wait really?”

“Mhmm, they’re trying to get him right now.”

“Di-Stri? They fucking know who Di-Stri is?”

“No no, but there’s someone who might and they’re tracking him down.”

“Holy shit.”

“Right?”

“Why did no one tell us?”

“I just overheard it right now, through the radios. They’re closing in on him.”

Holy shit, holy shit alright so maybe finding out who Di-Stri is before Wednesday won’t be such a big gamble after all, your goddamn fingers are tingling hell yes you need to get to work. But before you can Kanaya is waving the two of you into her office.

She shuts the door behind you both and looks up rather solemnly.

“You may have heard, we are bringing in a suspect today.”

“Yeah!”

“I want the two of you to do the interogating, however, there is a slight complication.”

“What is it?”

“Our suspect is rather well known and famous, so we need to keep this quiet. We do not want any more bad press if things go south.”

“Who is it?”

“. . .you’ll see when he gets here. I have just gotten word they’re on their way from the airport where they have arrested him.”

“How did we find him?”

“We have gotten an anonymous tip that he was working with Di-Stri and to check his records with his accountant, so we had gotten a warrant for those records and found that money has been regularly taken out of his account by a Di-Stri alias. However, he did not ever report his money being stolen.”

“Holy shit.”

“Holy shit is right, Karkat. He’ll be here in 5 minutes so go back to your desks and get prepared, I want to know everything he knows, we need a win.”

You and Nepeta nod and go back out to your desks; whoever made that anonymous tip, you want to meet them and give them a fucking pat on the back goddam. If this works out you might even buy them dinner, this is the most solid lead on the case, and real actual suspect. Maybe the accountant themself was your anonymous best friend, or whatever you’re just, wow hell yes. You and Nepeta get to work figuring out how you’re going to carry out this interrogation, good cop bad cop is a bit cliche but it might actually work in your case; you’re an angry motherfucker after all. 

The elevator dings and you hear shuffling and the jingle of keys and belts from the officers; that must be them, taking whoever this suspect is to the interrogation room.

“You ready to do this?”

“Yeah!”

“Let’s get going.”

You both head over towards the room, trying to stifle your grin and get into angry bad cop mode, clenching your fists and flexing your muscles; you’re small but you pack a fucking punch, this shithead better not fuck with you you’re Karkat Vantas, bad cop extraordinaire. 

You arrive at the two way mirror where you can see this guy sitting at the metal table inside, his cuffs linked to hooks on top. He looks like a real asshole from what you can tell; blonde hair, blazer over an old sesame street t-shirt, and who the fuck where’s sunglasses inside? There’s something about him though, something familiar. You’re handed a file by one of the arresting officers; no fucking way, this is Dave Strider? Really? The guy who makes literally the shittiest movies ever made? You can’t wait to tell Dirk about this, he’ll flip.

You and Nepeta nod at each other and head in, Nepeta first smiling sweetly with you glaring at him from behind.

“Oh shit are you guys actually doing good cop bad cop? Hell yes please do. Angry dude are you gonna yell at me? Then the nice lady here is gonna get me some coffee, right?”

You both freeze and look at each other. What the fuck?

“Oh sorry did I ruin it, hang on lemme get in character.”

He clears his throat.

“You’ll never take me alive coppers! I ain’t tellin you shit! . . .Was that good? Maybe a little too excited there, nervous might be more appropriate. Okay one more time, ready?”

He clears his throat again.

“P-p-please I-I don’t know anything, honest. Please you have to believe me!”

He almost looks like he’s about to cry, chin quiver and everything.

“Damn I’m good. But yeah anyway I want my lawyer, bitches.”

You. You hate this guy. You truly honestly hate this guy. He’s, this guy, fuck him, just fuck everything about him.

Nepeta slowly gets her phone out and sets it up to call, handing it over to him.

“Thanks.”

He types a number then leans down, trying to hold it next to his ear with his hands still cuffed.

“Eyy it’s me. . . .Yeah, yeah I got arrested at the airport, fuckers got to me before I could get on the plane. . . .hell yes thanks. . .don’t get distracted when you get here though, flighty broads and your shenanigans. . . yes of course you can separate work from. . .fine fine see you soon.”

He hangs up the phone and gives it back to Nepeta, smirking at the two of you and not saying a single word. He probably won’t until his lawyer is here anyway.

You and Nepeta leave the room, closing the door and just standing there in silence for maybe one minute? 10 minutes? You really can’t say, you’re just looking at each other, too stunned to speak.

What. The Fuck. Just Happened.

“The fuck. . .”

“We need to tell Kanaya.”

“Yeah, yeah shit.”

You rush back to Kanayas office and quickly open the door, but the words get caught in your throat as you look at each other a little guiltily.

“What happened?”

“He . . . called a lawyer. Won’t talk.”

“Shit, alright well once she gets here maybe we can do something about it.”

“She?”

“Yes.”

Kanaya sighs, then looks up.

“Well, she certainly got here fast.”

You both turn to looks out the window and see Rose looking at you from across the room, her arms crossed and an eyebrow raised. What the hell Rose? What’s going on, how does she know Dave?

“Let’s go.”

Kanaya, Nepeta, and you leave and walk over to her.

“Hello Rose.”

“Hello Kanaya. Karkat, Nepeta.”

She nods at the two of you.

“I trust Dave is well?”

“Yes, he is right over here, this way.”

You all go down the hallway to the interrogation room, seeing Dave again through the two way mirror. Rose sighs.

“What brought him in here?”

You give her the arrest report as Kanaya explains.

“There was an anonymous report that he had involvements with the hacker Di-Stri.”

She looks up from the paper.

“An anonymous report? This is all based on simply a rather good samaritan calling, blaming Dave?”

“We looked into him as well Rose. Money has been regularly siphoned from his accounts to a Di-Stri alias.”

“And so you thought he had something to do with it rather than him being a victim?”

“He has never reported it.”

“Perhaps he is careless and doesn’t check his accounts often, Kanaya. All of this is supposition and I would like him released.”

“We cannot allow that.”

“You have nothing on him, there is no evidence, just baseless circumstance from his own idiocy.”

“Rose.”

“Kanaya.”

You and Nepeta look at each other; this feels like you’re intruding on something, this is. . .just weird.

“Give us 5 minutes with him.”

“Absolutely not.”

“Only 5 minutes Rose, that’s all I ask.”

Rose sighs, and pinches her nose.

“Fine, fine 5 minutes but I need to talk with him first.”

“Very well. Thank you.”

Rose goes into the interrogation room, sitting across from Dave with her back towards the mirror.

“Shit. How the fuck do they know each other.”

“Rose and Dave are old friends, though I am curious myself as to her connections.”

“What the hell. . .”

“Going home will be difficult now, I’m sure, but we’re not wrong. Dave has something to do with Di-Stri, I promise you.”

“I believe you Kanaya, there’s no fucking way he’s just another Di-Stri target.”

“Yeah.”

“Thank you, you two. I don’t expect us to gather much from those 5 minutes but it is something.”

Rose soon comes back and holds open the door for you as you and Nepeta head in.

“So what can I do you for detectives?”

“You can start off by telling us about Di-Stri.”

“I have no idea who that is.”

“Cut the shit, you know full well what we’re talking about.”

“What my colleague here is trying to say is, why didn’t you ever report money being taken from your account?”

“I don’t pay much attention to it, I have enough that I really don’t care.”

“Yeah likely story.”

“It’s true, I’ve never been good with money so I just stopped checking, it’s dumb bullshit and I got better things to do with my time.”

“Like making the shittiest movies of all time?”

“Karkat. . .”

“Hell yes, you seen ‘em? Masterpieces I tell ya, I’m working on one to come out during the holidays called ‘Shit Let’s Be Santa 2: electric boogaloo fantasma, warned you about the stairs bro’. Title might need some work though.”

Rose pops in through the door.

“5 minutes are up, uncuff him if you please.”

You grumble and do just that, getting the keys and letting him loose.

“Later losers.”

He and Rose make their way out the door, heading down the hall, and leaving the station.

“Shit.”

You and Nepeta go find Kanaya in her office, sitting in two chairs in front of her desk where she sits, and the three of you sit in silence for a while, trying to figure out what the hell to make of this situation and recover from the emotional whiplash.

“So what do we do now?”

“Dave is definitely onto something, but with Rose it will be very hard to get close.”

“This is such fucking bullshit.”

“I understand Karkat, but we cannot make a scene with this.”

“Well what about the anonymous tipper? Do we know anything about them?”

“No, but they seem to have a genuine knowledge of Di-Stri and his activities.”

“We should find out who it is.”

“We already have enough trouble figuring out who one asshole is though, let alone two.”

“I agree, we should focus back on Wednesday again, it is becoming worryingly closer and closer.”

“Alright then, tomorrow Nepeta and I will head out again, look into a few places.”

“Excellent, I look forward to seeing your progress.”

You and Nepeta leave her office and get back to work. This day is just, a whole load of what the fuck, but you’re more determined than ever to solve this case. You’re so goddam close, you can feel it, you just don’t know where exactly to look yet.


	17. Chapter 17

You wake up pretty late the next day, slowly sitting up and yawning, your hair surely all over the place. You blink up at Roxy who’s peering over at you from her computer. 

“Good morning sleepy head.”

“What, what time is it?”

“Around noon.”

You nod and stumble upways, standing up; you notice Hals body off where it should be on the other side of the room on his table, turned off, good. You also notice Dave isn’t here anymore, and you feel a bit sad about it at first but then you get over it once you see the warm mug of coffee waiting for you. You immediately grab it and take a sip; fuck yes.

“Have I told you how much I love you Roxy?”

She giggles.

“It wouldn’t hurt if you said it a little more often.”

You smile and take another sip, damn, damn damn this coffee is amazing, best thing ever. You take it over to you desk and sit down, checking headlines, emails, anything new that popped up while you were asleep. You don’t see anything new, so you chill for a bit, watching youtube videos or whatever while Roxy does her own thing. But a few minutes later, you hear her voice with more gravitas than you thought it could have.

“Dirk.”

“Yeah.”

You look over to her and quirk an eyebrow; she’s holding her phone out to you, and holding a very serious face. She doesn’t normally make that face.

You go over and get the phone, holding it up to your ear.

“Dirk, there you are, it’s Rose.”

“Sup.”

“Dave was arrested.”

“. . . wait what.”

“He was taken into custody earlier this morning, but I just got him out. He’s taken another flight, not wanting to stay longer should the police get ideas again.”

You can barely hear her over the sound of your heart beat, drumming through your chest up into your throat. Do they know? Have they figured it out? Oh shit, does Karkat know you’re Di-Stri now? Fuck!

“From your silence I assume you are freaking out. Good. According to Kanaya, there was an anonymous tip linking Dave to Di-Stri, they looked into it and found his money being taken out regularly.”

“But they should see that with anyone else I’ve taken from.”

“Yes but Dave never reported it as stolen.”

Shit. Shit shit shit.

“You need to be careful now Dirk, they’re getting closer to you. You and Roxy need to find out who this anonymous tip was because clearly they are out to get you.”

Who the fuck. . . no, no no no you have to be fucking kidding.

“Thanks for telling me Rose, I gotta go.”

“I know. See you soon.”

You hang up the phone and toss it back to Roxy, rushing back to your desk and immediately opening up pesterchum. You think Roxy is saying something but you can’t hear her over your anger of a goddam thousand suns and then some.

\-- timaeusTestified **[TT]** began pestering undyingUmbrage **[uu]** at 13:47 --

TT: You son of a bitch.  


TT: You had my brother ARRESTED.  


uu: YES, IT’S FuNNY ISN’T IT.  


TT: You set fire to my most prominent restaurant, then you have my brother arrested.  


TT: What the fuck do you want Caliborn.  


uu: GIVE ME A ROBOT FuCKFACE.  


TT: Beyond that.  


TT: Why do you want a robot?  


uu: ISN’T IT OBVIOuS?  


uu: GONNA FuCK SHIT uP DuMBASS.  


TT: But how, where, why.  


uu: JuST.  


uu: GIVE ME A ROBOT.  


TT: . . .  


TT: If I give you a fucking robot will you stop fucking with me? I’ll throw in free porn too.  


uu: YES, TO BOTH.  


uu: ACTuALLY THE PORNOGRAPHY IS NOW NECESSARY FOR THIS DEAL.  


uu: ROBOT AND PORNOGRAPHY DIRK, THAT’S ALL I REQuIRE FOR MY CONQuEST.  


uu: BuT DON’T MAKE THE ROBOT FALL APART ONCE I HAVE IT, OTHERWISE I WILL RAIN HELL ON YOU.  


uu: BLOOD WILL BE ON YOuR HANDS DIRK.  


TT: You’re not going to kill anyone.  


uu: YOu DON’T THINK I WILL? OH I PITY YOuR NAIVE LITTLE BRAIN DIRK.  


uu: MY CONQuEST WILL BE BLOODY AND AWESOME.  


uu: NO ONE WILL STAND IN MY WAY, NOT EVEN MY SISTER.  


TT: So if I don’t draw you smut and give you a functioning robot you’ll fuck me over, and also kill you sister.  


uu: AMONG OTHERS, YES.  


TT: What the fuck is wrong with you.  


uu: MANY THINGS, I WILL ADMIT.  


TT: Fine. . .fuck it fine I’ll give you the fucking robot you piece of sanctimonious shit.  


uu: EXCELLENT. MEET ME AT YOuR CLuB, THE ONE MY SISTER WILL BE SINGING AT.  


TT: You want it by Wednesday? That’s in just 2 days.  


uu: WEDNESDAY, NO SOONER, NO LATER.  


TT: Fine, whatever.  


uu: SEE YOu WEDNESDAY DIRK.  


uu: tUMUt!

\-- undyingUmbrage **[uu]** ceased jeering timaeusTestified **[TT]** at 14:52 --

****

****

Fuck this, fuck everything.

“Dirk, what’s going on?”

“Caliborn. Fucking, he set all this up so I’ll make him a robot. Fine I’ll make him a goddam robot. Says he wants it on Wednesday, at the club.”

“Oh I’ll be there! Calli is singing.”

“Yeah, I think we should both go in case something goes wrong. But for now, I need to work on a robot for him.”

“Seriously??”

“I don’t have much of a choice. Can you keep watch?”

“Obvi.”

“Thanks.”

You go to the kitchen and eat some of whatever takeout is left; it’ll probably be the last thing you eat until this project is done.

After, you go over to your workshop area and sigh; time to get to work. You sit down on your swivel chair, put on your shades, pull up schematics, and start getting parts together. Hal helps you with minor details, when you miss something or to remind you not for forget certain parts and you gather up pieces for a chassis, motherboards, getting all the wires you’ll need, getting the right tools from your toolbox, everything. This all better be worth it, Caliborn is fucking up with your plans too much, and he’s attacking your family, making threats to his own. You think that they might be empty, those threats, but. . .you just can’t risk it, it’ll be your fault if you let him continue this. 

It’s going to be a long day.


	18. Chapter 18

You don’t get much sleep Monday night, and you don’t get very far with the case on Tuesday, it’s driving you crazy. Every second closer to Wednesday a new scenario pops into your head, a new scenario that could be all your fault, that could have casualties, if you don’t figure out what the hell’s going on. You text Dirk, apologizing for being swamped with work but you won’t be able to see him soon, and he tells you he’s busy with the restaurant situation so at least all is good on that front. Your relationship is the only thing steady right now and you don’t want it any other way. 

You, Nepeta, and even Kanaya too now collectively look through phone records, emails, everything. You have a few explosions and outbursts during the day, and so Nepeta and Kanaya tell you to stay at the station, combing through information while they go out and look through different locations, asking owners questions about it. It was a stupid fucking idea and you made sure they knew that, but they still went anyway, and it really wasn’t that bad of an idea now that you had the time to think about it you guess. You are getting absolutely nowhere with this, it’s mind boggling how you can’t figure this out. What kind of detective are you if you can’t fit all of these puzzle pieces together? Fucking sigh.

You think about texting Dirk again, to chat and calm down, but you decide not to as he has his own shit to deal with and if anything, you need to be 100% focused on this case. 

Hours later of dead-end leads and you’re exactly where you where you started; you looked into the records of other targets, even more so on Dave Strider but other than not reporting his money stolen we was too squeaky clean, suspiciously so, but you don’t have the ability to follow down that road so your fucked. Nepeta and Kanaya come back looking exhausted and in the same place as you, with nothing. The three of you sit down and start dealing with the possibility of just leaving it, and getting ready to react to anything tomorrow. It’s a shitty plan but it’s the only one you have, so you agree.

You head home feeling more dejected and filled with self loathing than you’ve ever felt your entire life. It sucks, it sucks hard, your shoulders are going to drop to the floor with how much you’re sulking and sagging. You get back to you apartment and sit down on your mattress, wallowing in self pity, all the pities really. 

**Karkat:** We’ve planned to just react to whatever happens since we having less than nothing.  
**Dirk:** It’ll be ok Karkat, don’t blame yourself.  
**Dirk:** Please.  
**Karkat:** I’m a shitty detective Dirk, the shittiest shit in a mound of shit. So shitty flies say that I’m just too shitty for them.  
**Dirk:** You’ve solved plenty of cases, right? This one time won’t be a big deal, it’s a guaranteed probability.  
**Dirk:** You’ll end up finding out who this Di-Stri guy is, I promise.  
**Karkat:** Yeah I guess you’re right. I’m so tired.  
**Dirk:** Go to sleep Karkitten. G’night.  
**Karkat:** <3  
**Dirk:** <3

*

You get to work early the next day, and so does Nepeta and Kanaya, you all look at each other with silent determined looks; you don’t even need to say anything to know that you all are gonna be ready for whatever the hell happens next. You begin the day at your desk, busying yourself with other minor cases, getting through with at least those, when your phone suddenly buzzes.

\-- undyingUmbrage **[uu]** began jeering carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** at 11:24 --

uu: FINALLY.  


uu: HELLO DETECTIVE.  


uu: I’M THE ONE WHO TOLD YOu ABOUT DAVE.  


uu: APPARENTLY uSELESSLY SO. IDIOTS.  


CG: DO YOU KNOW WHAT DI-STRI HAS PLANNED FOR TONIGHT?  


uu: YES. IN DuE TIME.  


uu: WAIT FOR MY MESSAGE.  


CG: WHAT THE FUCK NO, IF YOU KNOW SOMETHING AND YOU’RE WITHHOLDING IT FROM ME THEN YOU’LL BE CHARGED FOR FUCKING UP THIS INVESTIGATION.  


uu: RELAX YOuR PATHETIC BITCHING. YOu’LL KNOW WHEN IT’S TIME FOR YOu TO KNOW.

\-- undyingUmbrage **[uu]** ceased jeering carcinoGeneticist **[CG]** \--

Well, shit at least it’s something. He was good on the lead on Dave, even though you couldn’t do jack shit with it, but they definitely knew something. You curse that you’re under this anonymous persons whims, but you’re desperate. You tell Nepeta and Kanaya about the message, and they both agree that you should listen to them and wait for them to send you the message.

The day crawls by even slower after that, your leg bouncing, you look up at the clock every five minutes to see that it’s really only been one, you get up and walk around a few dozen times; anyone can see your antsy as fuck. After your eleventh trip to the break room, Kanaya calls you into her office, allowing you to take a car and patrol around the area; should something happen you’ll be first on the scene. You gratefully accept the order, she probably figured you were going to break the whole damn office in a fitful outburst with your pent up anxiety, so it’s a bit of a win/win.

You head out and get your drive on, it’s been a while since you’ve been behind the wheel but damn if it isn’t refreshing. You drive down the city streets, heading towards the downtown area as cars pass by you, including a speeding van but you really can’t be bothered with traffic duties; you need to stay alert and ready for whatever happens. 

It takes a while, turning here, turning there, watching the lights pass by, the sun setting, it all blurs together; driving has really calmed you down. You almost forget that you should be getting a message when your phone finally buzzes.

uu: CLuB SKAIA. GO PEASANT. 

You excuse this guys ignoble tone and slam the gas pedal, picking up the radio as you do summoning the entire fucking police force to meet you at this club where shit is about to fucking go down hell yes. Your nerves are full of fire and ice as you get closer and closer to the club, adrenaline flowing through every vein and it’s invigorating. The radio responds, letting you know that your backup is on its way; it’s motherfucking show time.

By the gracious luck of all that is holy, it doesn’t take long for you to get to Club Skaia, you see the bright flashing lights declaring its name just around the corner, and the car screeches at the front. Ok, this is it Karkat, this is fucking it.

You jump out the car and stalk inside, flashing your badge to the bouncer who lets you in past the long line, heading through a wall of beads to see the place pretty crowded. There’s someone singing on the main stage, charging the party in the surrounding people as you scan the crowd for anything suspicious, anything that looks out of the ordinary. You slide through people dancing and standing around with their drinks, careful to hide your gun; you don’t want to be made before everyone else shows up, you can’t give Di-Stri any means for escape.

You take a position on some stair leading to the upper floors as you take one last look at the people on the main floor, there are bright colors splashed everywhere, pink, green, orange, blues, red. You see people with beads around their necks, decorative wrappings, pajamas, blazers, everything. You look over at the bar off to the side, the bartenders look pretty busy serving customers, you try as hard as you can to see something, anything suspicious. There’s a few people you spot at the bar checking their watch, on their phone, and some wild hairstyles too, braids everywhere, spiky blonde, one person hiding off to the corner with a bright green hat. . .

Spiky blonde hair.

It looks eerily familiar.

He turns to look at the stage and holy shit what is Dirk doing here.

You run down the stairs and rush up to him, immediately sliding into the stool next to him and he looks just as surprised and horrified to see you here too.

“Dirk! What the hell are you doing here?”

“I, I came to watch a friend sing. What are _you_ doing here?”

“We got a tip Di-Stri is here, but I need you to get out before anything goes down. The police are coming in full force and I don’t want you in the middle or getting hurt.”

He swallows, and slowly seems to process the information as he takes one last gulp of his horny bull and sets in down with a sigh. He stands up and looks to you.

“Right, okay. I’ll head out now. Can we meet up when it’s over?”

“Sure, yeah fine I just need you to leave now, go somewhere safe.”

He nods and takes your shoulders, quickly pressing a kiss against your lips before letting go.

“Thank you.”

And he rushes out.

Shit that could have been really bad, you don’t know what you would have done if he got in the middle of things. You end up staying at the bar, continuously looking and scanning around before you hear sirens fastly approaching, and a few people start getting more nervous; good. Soon the police are coming in and crashing the party, the music stops and all the lights turn on, you see Nepeta and Kanaya coming in from the entrance with megaphones demanding Di-Stri reveal himself. The crowd is quiet, except for a few hecklers who demand ‘you pigs’ get out and leave Di-Stri alone, because apparently he can do the police's job better than they can. 

The hecklers soon get louder and louder, and more numerous too, people start throwing trash and wrappers at all of you. You look to your partners, knowing that you can’t arrest all of these fuckwits, plus it might all be part of Di-Stri’s plan. You resolve to let everyone out, but not without an officer checking each person, getting their fingerprints just in case, making sure every single entrance is covered. 

It takes a few hours, and there’s still a few people left, Nepeta and Kanaya say that they’ll check security footage while you go home, you’ve already done enough. It doesn’t feel like enough though, you feel pissed, there’s no way you’re letting Di-Stri slip through your fingers. Once you get everyone's fingerprints, and look through the security footage, you’re finally going to catch him. Fucking finally. Di-Stri was in that club, you know for a fact, you could feel it in your fucking bones, he was there.

You knock on Dirks door, wondering where the hell is Di-Stri now, having just been right under your nose.


	19. Chapter 19

Well, it’s not perfect, but it’s the best you can do in such a short time. The robot is just about finished and in the nick of time too, it’s also right around the same quality as most of your robots. You don’t know what Caliborn plans to do with it and it worries you because the potential this thing has in his hands is. . . monumental to say the least, but it’s not like you have much of a choice. 

You lift your shades up and rest them on top of your head with a sigh, leanings back and rubbing your hand down your face, probably smearing grease on your cheeks but whatever. You send a quick message to Caliborn telling him it’s finished and that you’ll meet him at the club soon, before you stand up. You stretch your arms and back, only now noticing how stiff your whole body is but it isn’t so bad, you’ve had longer stretches of work in the past.

Roxy then pushes you off to take a shower and change into something nice for the club, you try to argue that it’s just a business transaction you don’t need anything fancy but she’s very insistent that you wear at least a blazer; she’s hard to resist anyhow. You take your shower, change your clothes, and start loading up the robot into your van, and you and Roxy drive off. You end up speeding a little, wanting to get this over with sooner rather than later, you think you even pass by a police car but you don’t get pulled over along the way.

As you approach the club, you drive towards the back alleyway and to the loading dock, parking the van and leaving it there as Roxy and you go inside. You meet up with Calliope in the green room, chatting for a bit before she goes on stage, she tells you that Caliborn should be there soon so you head into the main floor and to the bar. The party has already started, the bass bouncing through the room, people dancing and grinding, lights flashing; on any other night you’d be there with them, dancing, but tonight you have a job to do, and you’re stressed enough right now. But as you drink, you think about the possibility of taking Karkat here, having some fun, bumping and grinding hell yeah that could get real hot; he’d probably hate it at first, too loud and flashy, but you think you could get him to like it.

And just when you’re thinking that, he’s there, Karkat is actually here what the fuck. Shit shit shit was this a set up? Oh you are going to fucking kill Caliborn holy shit.

“We got a tip Di-Stri is here, but I need you to get out before anything goes down. The police are coming in full force and I don’t want you in the middle or getting hurt.”

Holy shit, thank fucking god Calicorn didn’t count on you and Karkat already knowing each other, and intimately so; this could have been really bad, though you have a feeling this is only putting off the inevitable. After this, he’s probably going to connect all the pieces, you’re sure of it, so you tell him to meet you at the apartment after this, you want the chance to hold his, say goodbye, something before he figures it out.

You take a big gulp of your drink, you’re gonna need it, and kiss Karkat goodbye as you leave back towards the loading dock. You text Roxy to join you immediately and sure enough a few moments later she joins you with Calliope, saying that the police just got there and you tell them you know. You all hop into the van and get it started.

“Dirk”

“Yeah?”

“The robot’s gone.”

You turn around and sure enough, it’s not there anymore; where the fuck was Caliborn? How did he get in? You shrug and start driving away, avoiding the mass of police and sneaking away. Caliborn definitely set this all up, he wanted more than the robot, he wanted you caught right then and there too, but lucky for you Karkat trusts you (at least for now). You hope at least he’ll keep his word that now he has one of your robots, he won’t be in your shit anymore, but since you didn’t get caught you highly doubt that.

You resolve to plan your next move with Roxy tomorrow, as Karkat knocks on your door.


	20. Chapter 20

Dirk welcomes you inside and the familiarity of himself and his apartment is a big relief and comfort after the day you’ve had. You make your way over to his couch and flop down in a huff. Fuck today, you just want some cuddles with your boyfriend. Yeah . . .boyfriend. You don’t think you’ve called him that before but it sounds nice, right. Your boyfriend tosses you a blanket which you happily gather up and cover yourself with, and he plants a kiss on the top of your head before joining you. You sit sideways on the couch with your feet on his lap.

“Did you get food yet?”

“No, spent hours at that club combing through people.”

Dirk nods and starts tapping away at his phone, hopefully ordering you some food. Your hero. 

“Tonight was such a shit show.”

“Yeah? Guessing you didn’t catch the guy.”

“Nope, fucker got away.”

“Sorry.”

“Yeah well, nothing we can really do about it right now.”

Dirk hums and nods.

“What were you doing at the club by the way? Kind of a weird coincidence.” 

“A friend was performing. I went to see her.”

“Oh she was your friend? She was good.”

He smiles.

“I’ll be sure to tell her that.”

The two of you continue talking about inane things, casual relaxing conversation. But there’s something nagging in the back of your head, you’re not sure why that is though. For some reason the fact that Dirk was there at the club screams out to you. Why would it though? Is he connected? 

“This might seem like a weird question, but do you own that club?”

“I uh, I do. Why do you ask?”

“No reason, just trying to get a full picture of what happened.”

You continue talking and you mull his answer over. Shit is he going to be hit by Di-Stri? Not really his style it doesn’t seem, going after somewhat small time millionaires when there are so many billionaires to go for. Something’s not adding up, a vital piece of information that you’re missing. But why does it feel that way? Dirk has nothing to do with this, does he? No, no absolutely not. You don’t want him to be involved in this mess. 

There’s a knock on the door, and Dirk gets up to answer it. The smell of pizza wafts through the room and you practically shiver in an olfactory orgasm. Best boyfriend. He brings over the boxes and you immediately start digging in as you both go back to talking between delicious savory bites. 

Okay, you review everything that’s happened so far. Di-Stri messages you, you try to flirt. He steals from the bank, leaves a note for you. You go on a date with Dirk. Di-Stri takes out your systems at the station, and left you a note about today. He tries to convince you he’s not so bad. Though turns out there may be something to it. Di-Stri outs the dirty cops. Dave Strider gets arrested, though gets let loose right after by Rose. Now today. 

Hmm there’s something underneath all that’s happened. One thing striking out to you is Rose. You met her when going out for drinks, that was also the same night that you saw Dirk again and got his number. Then she comes back again with Dave Strider. Strider . . .that name. Strider, _Stri_ der, Stri. Stri! Shit there _is_ a connection! Di-Stri- it’s a name! Last name Strider, first name hmm… Not Dave no.. Di … Di…. Dirk? That . . .would fit. No but there’s no way right? 

It suddenly occurs to you that you really have no idea what Dirks last name is.

“Hey Dirk.”

“Yeah?”

“What’s your last name?”

There’s a pause of silence as he finishes off his bite of pizza.

“. . . Strider.”

Your heart drops to the pit of your stomach and it feels as though all the air has been sucked out of the room. You feel numb, frozen solid, the world around you doesn’t exist except for the fact that Dirks last name is Strider.

There’s no way, no way at all no you refuse. Dirk Strider . . .Di-Stri. It fucking fits though. Didn’t he say his brother was leaving right before Dave got arrested? Is his brother Dave Strider? Well obviously yes he has to be, the possibility of the two coincidentally having the same last name and not being related is nonexistent. And he was at the club! He really was right under your fucking nose. Not to mention once you started dating him he tried to convince you he was a good person. Yeah right, after all this time he lied to you, lied straight to your face. 

You can’t breathe, it’s too much there’s just no fucking way. Your heart _hurts_.

Dirk Strider is Di-Stri and he’s sitting right next to you, looking at you wearily with wide eyes. Yeah you better be scared shit head.

“Dirk.”

You growl. He clears his throat and sets the pizza down, turning towards you.

“Yeah?”

“You’re Di-Stri.”

“. . .Yeah.”

“You’re fucking Di-Stri and you’ve never said a single goddam thing to me about it?! Just let me wallow away on this fucking case and lied to me like it’s not big deal-”

“It _was_ a big deal-”

“Nope! Don’t you dare speak to me Dirk I am so far beyond of being pissed. I can’t fucking believe you, and to think I was actually starting to think I was in Lo… UGH Did you even stop to consider quite possibly how I’d feel? That I feel like the biggest goddam idiot that my boyfriend is the fucking hacker I’ve been after? That you’ve been lying to me this whole time. What the fuck’s going to stop me from arresting you right the fuck her and right the fuck now? Huh? Tell me that Dirk. Oh yeah it’s because I have no fucking proof to connect you, not yet that is now that I know where to look.”

“Karkat please-”

“Don’t ‘Karkat please’ me. You fucked up, you royally fucked up big time Dirk. I can’t believe you, I can’t believe _this_.”

You sigh and your vision almost goes black with the anger coursing through you. Your hands are shaking and you have to keep reminding yourself the breathe. How could he do this to you? How could he lie to your face? Pretend that there was nothing going on, not to mention he’s a criminal! He’s done so much bad shit, not that you’re free from your own sins, but what Dirk has done is utterly deplorable. 

“I can’t stand to even be here right now, I can’t stand being in the same room as you.”

You can feel the tears behind your eyes, their warmth and you feel ready to burst. There’s just too much going on and too many emotions; anger, frustration, betrayal, _hurt_. You quickly stand up and rush to the door.

“Karkat wait!”

You don’t even bother to turn around, you can’t stomach to look at him.

“Good-bye Di-Stri.”

And you slam the door as you leave.


End file.
